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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945164">The Ballad of the Red-haired girl</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/freaksout/pseuds/freaksout'>freaksout</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A game of chess [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avengers (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drugged Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Graphic Violence, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:08:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>52,429</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945164</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/freaksout/pseuds/freaksout</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How Virginia "Pepper" Potts became Tony Stark's personal assistant, then his lover, and finally his most loyal ally in his fight against the evil mastermind Obadiah Stane.<br/>The story of an 'average' girl turning into the white Queen in the game of chess!<br/></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton &amp; Natasha Romanov, James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark, Maria Hill &amp; Pepper Potts, Nick Fury &amp; Pepper Potts, Nick Fury &amp; Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts &amp; James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts &amp; Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts &amp; Obadiah Stane, Pepper Potts &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Phil Coulson &amp; Nick Fury &amp; Maria Hill, Phil Coulson &amp; Pepper Potts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A game of chess [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Potts & Pepper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My own "origin story" of Virginia "Pepper" Potts (I just decide to ignore the canon there to fit in my story).<br/>How Potts became Pepper, than Potts and finally Pepper again. And how she found himself on Mr. Stark's side when she was needed the most!<br/>As always, apologies for language mistakes!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She could remember the first time she has crossed Tony Stark’s path like it was yesterday.</p><p>Virginia Potts has entered the Stark Industries as intern in communication, and no doubts she deserved it: she was the best in her class, she was part of the staff of different associations, she was enrolled in charity events organized by her college.</p><p>Still she was not the preferred candidate for high-rank position since she lacked two fundamental characteristics: a good and wealth family background, and the ability to shut up in front of injustices.</p><p>This last characteristic together with her freckles on the nose has earnt her the nickname “Pepper” since day 1 in school, at age 6.</p><p>It matched perfectly with the red-haired stereotypes, but through time she had learnt how to play low and silently, while still playing.</p><p>She was a lonely child of an average middle-class family.</p><p>Both her parents have small satisfying jobs, and she passed her afternoon by a friendly neighbor who acted like a grandmother for her till she died at a very old age.</p><p>By that time, Pepper was around 10 and she could manage herself alone just fine. Not that she loved to stay alone: at parties during childhood and later as a teenager she socialized quickly and have fun, without ever being the queen of the prom or the girl that made all heads turn when she walked through the corridors.</p><p>Simply, like her parents, she was just average.</p><p>At age 16, however, Pepper’s life was turned upside down in the most dramatic way.</p><p>She had passed a normal Sunday afternoon around town with her friends, but when she came home she found a female police officer to wait for her: there had been a robbery at the mall, and her parents were among the victims. She had half an hour to collect her things before being assigned to the social services until the hearing of the judge.</p><p>She stayed in a shelter for young ladies only for three months: turned out her parents have left her quite a sum, and if she could demonstrated to take care of herself through regular reports with the social assistants, she could live on her own.</p><p>From that moment, she dropped the “Pepper” and became “miss Potts”.</p><p>She sold everything she didn’t need from her old parents’ house, including the house itself, and moved to a small apartment consisting of a kitchen with a breakfast table, a one-sized bedroom and a small bathroom with a shower and a tub so small she could only sit in it. But it was clean and sunny in the morning, more than fine for her alone.</p><p>Besides, she didn’t spend lot of time at home: when she wasn’t at school, she stayed in the library to prepare the exams for the college, since she needed a full scholarship, and at nights she worked in a small pub near home. That way she also spared money from the heating!</p><p>After the first months, her math teacher, a nice Afro-American lady with a past as CEO of a technological company, has offered to tutor her for free and prepare her for college exams. In exchange Potts would have babysit her kids during the weekends, in order to allow her and her husband to spend some time alone.</p><p>She was glad to have this opportunity, and, most of all, that someone put faith on her.</p><p>She also asked her teacher why she had abandoned such a prestigious work, and she confessed that it was too stressful. So when the company has been absorbed by Stark Industries, she had asked for a golden parachute, had bought this nice house and settled with her husband, an army veteran, in this small town. She couldn’t just be an house-wife but she had always worked and, since after the two pregnancy, she had realized she needed to get a life outside the house.</p><p>Pepper listened carefully, as always, since through time she had learned to talk less and smile more. With everyone but her math teacher surprise, she was allowed a full scholarship in Economy for merit in a prestigious college, and so she abandoned the small town where she had passed her whole life to move living on campus.</p><p>She found another job on Friday nights and on the weekends to afford living, but she hasn’t taken the habit of wasting money so she had still something left by her parents.</p><p>But the sum was growing smaller and smaller, to her major concern!</p><p>_________________________________________________________________</p><p>College was not easy if you were a no-one, but Pepper was brilliant and determined to create herself a life.</p><p>And since she had a gift for scheduling and organizing, she quickly became a useful resources in many different clubs and social activities she had forced herself to be involved to made a name.</p><p>She quickly realized that she needed to save budget to set a wardrobe for important occasions, which included job interviews for interne in private companies. They regularly enrolled personnel for the summer season, when many employees were on holiday, and there was a huge need of underpaid laborers.</p><p>Usually those jobs were reserved for students at their last years, but Virginia Potts managed to rock one job interview at her second year and to obtain a place for the summer in an import-export company specialized in coffee and coffee-machine.</p><p>That was an experience with lights and shadows.</p><p>The main lights were that she learnt quickly on the field the major problems she had only addressed theoretically.</p><p>She also understood she needed to improve her language skills, and she took some ‘classes’ in Italian from one of the importer.</p><p>When she finished her intern, the director wrote her a good reference letter, and gave her an economic reward for her work, while the senior assistants rewarded her with a new coffee-machine and quite a stock of their best imported Italian coffee; the Italian importer later send her a proper moka pot, which she couldn’t use in her room in the campus, but that she would accompany her for the rest of her life.</p><p>The big shadow on that amazing summer, however, was the bad news she received from her last contact back home: her former math teacher had passed away, after a six months tragic and hopeless battle against lungs cancer.</p><p>She was devastated by the news, and that maybe was why she didn’t immediately realize that the chief’s son was making moves towards her. She wasn’t not at her first relationship, and she had already experience harassment, but she didn’t realize his intentions until it was almost too late.</p><p>That night she was finishing an important budget revision so she had stayed later than the other colleagues, but she wasn’t expecting to have company: lucky for her she had managed to free herself from the young man she believed to be her friend, and she had closed herself in one of the offices downstairs until it was dawn.</p><p>She didn’t talk to anyone of what has happened, but she got the vivid sensation everybody or at least the majority of them knew and that they were judging her. And when the chief gave her that good economic reward he made clear it was a way to buy her silence.</p><p>She needed those money, so she stayed silent.</p><p>She didn’t like herself for this, and she would have still complied her behavior many years later with her maybe first good friend in a lifetime, a former Russian spy named Natasha Romanoff.</p><p>________________________________________________________________</p><p>Back in college, it was clear to everyone that miss Virginia Potts was a clever mind behind a pretty face.</p><p>Still she lacked resources and knowledges in the upper spheres.</p><p>She didn’t let it to take her down as she continued her brilliant career in scholarship, as well as in various committees both inside and outside the campus. From one of those charity activities, she got the link with the responsible of human resources at Stark Industries, who was just enrolling fresh meat for a new office created in Manhattan, New York.</p><p>Miss Potts’s records, as well as her skills and the letters of reference they received provided her access of an intern for that summer, with a possible promotion into a six-months job if she’d met the requirements.</p><p>That was how she put foot for the first time into Stark Industries offices in Manhattan, together with other fifty young graduates in different disciplines.</p><p>She had to move to another small apartments quite far from her job, taking almost 2 hours to come and other 2 hours to go. Since day 1 it was immediately clear that the internship was like a carnage, and that obtaining that six-months contract was not at all easy giving the internal competition, and, once again, her lack of prestigious connections in the political or economic world.</p><p>No one has ever heard of “Potts”, and for everyone else she was just another pretty face who delivered coffee at meetings until she would be substituted by another pretty face.</p><p>To make herself indispensable and remarkable, she tried again the card of scheduling and organization, managing to do the job of three people in less time. Contrary to her expectations, that caused her envy and some abuses from her senior colleagues, who started to overtly insinuate on the reasons why a no-one like her with such a beautiful body had ended up in those office.</p><p>Sometimes it was very hard to just smile and maintain her composure, and she felt that her porcelain skin was turning into iron, reflecting everything and keeping everyone at distance, even the ones that maybe (maybe though) were just trying to help her.</p><p>Like the vice-CEO of the company, Obadiah Stane, who had been one of the founders of the company together with the passed Howard Stark. Stane was indeed quite kind with her when she brought coffee and managed things around the board meeting.</p><p>She thanked her aloud with a smile, and he never overstepped his role by making awkward compliments on her look.</p><p>He had also offered her a small promotion, without actual money rewarding though: she has been nominated sort of committee secretary, so she had to attend all the meetings of the board and then sum up the major points for internal filing.</p><p>She didn’t know why, though, but Mr. Stane made her feeling uncomfortable. He had done nothing wrong, not even involuntary, which was quite a record for a man of his age in that environment! Still, she had a bad sensation and she knew for sure she didn’t want to find herself alone with him.</p><p>She thought, however, to be just paranoiac.</p><p>It took her more than four months to meet the real boss of Stark Industries, that is Anthony “Tony” Stark himself, Howard Stark’s son, and, by popular knowledge, a brilliant but eccentric genius with a notorious reputation as a playboy.</p><p>The first time they exchanged words it was at a board meeting: Tony Stark usually never attended those meetings, but that time he was needed to set-up some new production lines for the Army, so he made his entrance with more than half an hour of delay, dark glasses on and a loud mouth in telling everyone that he had some brilliant ideas for the company and that they had basically to deal with them or be fired.</p><p>It took Mr. Stane quite a while to calm some of the board members down and to persuade the Stark boy to cooperate.</p><p>When the genius has been persuaded at listening, Stane commanded miss Potts to take other coffees for everyone.</p><p>“This coffee sucks!” Mr. Stark exclaimed out loud at the first sip, just after Mr. Stane had thanked her for the service.</p><p>“That’s because of the blend, Mr. Stark” she calmly replied. She didn’t know why she did bother to answer, but she did not stop as she explained: “It was not made for that line of machine and the grains are ruined during the preparation. Your machines burned the grains, sir!”</p><p>He looked at her with curiosity, while all the board had remained silent: a part from “Yes, Mr. Stane” or “You’re welcome, Mr. Stane” they’ve never heard her voice much; probably they believed she was some living robot in line of that “Life model decoy” project the young genius was so fond of, but which they’ve never approved formally.</p><p>Then Mr. Stark has asked: “And how happen that a young intern knows so well about my coffee machines?”</p><p>“I’ve worked for an import-export company trading coffee from different places, including Italy, Mr. Stark” she calmly explained once more with her usual flat smile. “And before you asked, I’ve already prepared the modules to have those machines of yours changed with new ones better suited for the blend everybody seemed to like, but it appeared that my request has not been processed yet.”</p><p>He has grinned, satisfied. “Well, then I suppose that I have to make some calls to remind people that their boss likes good coffee when he’s in town” he said.</p><p>He then stayed almost quiet for the rest of the meeting, and she noticed that he was glancing at her from time to time.</p><p>When she met his eyes again, she noticed that he has removed his sunglasses and has big brown eyes which reflected something she usually saw in her own in the morning in front of the mirror: it took a lonely person to recognize another, and those eyes reflected loneliness. She thought that was an incredible thing due to whom said eyes belonged to, but yet the feeling was there.</p><p>She couldn’t bother too much on Mr. Stark’s problems, though, since the following weeks were a bit not easy for her, just to use an euphemism.</p><p>Apparently, someone has not been pleased that miss Potts has made an open remark on the coffee quality and on the supply system, so said someone made a point in doubling miss Potts’s work!</p><p>They made her some stupid prank too, like putting her freshly prepared reports directly in the trash and forced her to write it over and over again for seven times, or installing a virus in her computer to make all her files disappearing… just a few days before the final report of her internship!</p><p>She didn’t react because she knew that in a few days she would have been unemployed and she needed a reference letter from the Stark Industries human resources to be able to find a job.</p><p>She had make an habit to stay very late at night, long past 7 PM, when she could work with calm and nobody around.</p><p>She was then quite surprised when one night around 10 PM she smelled a freshly poured coffee coming from a mug on a side of her desk.</p><p>“For you!” she heard a familiar voice saying, by moving the mug next to her. “New blend, as you suggested, is amazing! And I’ve perfected my machines… you were right: they were burning the grains!”</p><p>Even in the dark of the room, she recognized Mr. Stark’s tone and bright smile, while he sank in a chair in front of her with his own coffee on one hand.</p><p>She frowned, thinking that she was again in a difficult situation, alone at night when she was supposed to be at home, and with a young and powerful man in front of her.</p><p>She looked at coffee, trying to smile a plain: “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”</p><p>He looked intensively at her and she felt like he could read inside her.</p><p>“It’s just coffee, there’s nothing else inside it, don't worry!” he stated, unrequested. Then he stood and added: “I didn’t want to scare or upset you, miss Potts. I was here for signing some papers and then see someone else… But I saw you here alone… and I thought you may need a coffee! I love coffee, especially when I’m working late at night!”</p><p>“Thank you indeed, Mr. Stark!” she repeated, wondering how a high class white man immediately thought of a drugged coffee. Tony Stark didn’t seem to need that trick to lure people near him. And that was not what his eyes were telling…</p><p>“Could you just tell me something, miss Potts?” she hard Stark asking, halfway gone.</p><p>“Of course, Mr. Stark.”</p><p>“I’ve seen your records and CV and you’re very brilliant… why did it take so long to you to complete those reports you’re working on?”</p><p>She kept her smile on to avoid her emotions to spill out and scream.</p><p>After a week, or better months, of mobbing, she wanted to shout that she could easily do everybody’s job on that floor, but that she was being boycotted by some pitiful men and women too afraid of losing their privileges! That it was the third night straight she slept less than three hours! That her house was two hours away from there, and that she had just ten outfits to go to work, without having to give the impression to wear the same dresses all over again, so sometimes she rented another from a neighbor!</p><p>But she knew that a billionaire like Tony Stark couldn’t get that, and even if he wanted to be gentle now, in two hours he’d probably forget about this pitiful hysteric intern.</p><p>“A small inconvenient occurred to my computer a couple of days ago, so I’m trying to recover all the files in the archiving system I’ve designed” she then answered.</p><p>She saw him raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“I don’t like technical inconvenience at my home” he said.</p><p>She took the side note that Mr. Stark talked of his company like his home. He has moved closer, but strangely she didn’t feel menaced by him.</p><p>“What happened, miss Potts?”</p><p>“There was a virus…”</p><p>“A virus? On the Stark Industry network?” he shouted, outraged.</p><p>“Please, Mr. Stark, there’s no need to be upset!” she replied, worried. Great, now she has managed to piss the big boss himself!</p><p>“No need? That’s my house! No one comes uninvited! And there are secrets, military ones! I’ve designed this network, no virus could simply enter here…”</p><p>“Mr. Stark, please, could you listen to me?” she tried again.</p><p>She was quite surprised to see that he calmed down immediately and was looking at her. From the few meetings he has attended and the rumors she has heard, she knew that it normally took Mr. Stane quite an effort to have the genius listening. Instead, here he was, silently waiting for an explanation for an anonymous intern.</p><p>“The point is, Mr. Stark,” she stated, “that the virus was not in the company network, neither did it come from an outside source. It has attacked only my computer, and destroyed only the reports I’ve prepared on the budgets and the meetings I’ve attended so far. I am supposed to submit those materials as part of a final report on my internship at your company by the end of this week, that is in two days, when my contract expires. But as I said, you don’t need to worry: it has been an unfortunate accident, and I’ve already made sure no other computer was affected by this trouble or that private data have been compromised!”</p><p>He stared at her for a moment, before pointing at her monitor.</p><p>“May I?” he asked.</p><p>“Sure…” she said, a bit confused, moving away from the desk.</p><p>It took him ten minutes of working quickly through her files, directly into the main programs. He murmured half words and insults while working, and she had to admit she lost herself into the intensity of those eyes while he was working so close to her.</p><p>“Here!” he exclaimed with a huge smile, standing back.</p><p>She looked back at her monitor and she couldn’t hide an exclamation of surprise.</p><p>“All your files have been recovered, miss Potts!” he said. “And tomorrow morning the brat who had played you this stupid prank will find himself in your same position… only this time he wouldn’t be able to recover his files, because he’d had to over-run my codes now!”</p><p>“T- thank you, Mr. Stark!” she said, astonished.</p><p>He giggled, and he appeared very proud of himself, but not like the pompous proud of genius showing off like he did at meetings, but more like a childish proud for having done something good. And, like a child, he took two small pink lollipops from his pockets and offered her one.</p><p>“Oh, no, Mr. Stark!” she had to refuse, with a soft smile. “I think there’s strawberry flavor inside and I’m allergic.”</p><p>“Oh!” he appeared very sad at the news. “Well, I suppose I should remember this information for the future…”</p><p>They were exchanging smiles while his eyes noticed the clock behind her desk, and he jumped away, almost in panic.</p><p>“Shit!” he exclaimed, panting hard. “I’m late…”</p><p>It was such a rapid change of attitude that she couldn’t refrain to worry: it was like she had witnessed a live switch of personality.</p><p>“Mr. Stark?” she called him.</p><p>He looked at her for a while and she was a bit scared by the nuance of fear and pain hidden behind those big brown eyes which a moment ago have sparkled with genius and childish happiness.</p><p>“Go home now, Miss Potts! You deserve to rest!” he told her, head down, and hands folded in his pockets, the lollipop pending on a side of his mouth.</p><p>He moved to the elevators like he was about to going to an execution.</p><p>“Good night, Mr. Stark!” she managed to say.</p><p>He didn’t even answered, disappearing in the elevator without turning back.</p><p>She couldn’t do anything but collecting her stuff, turning off her restored computer and called a taxi while approaching the elevator. She was very tired so she randomly noticed that the elevator was coming down, like if its last user has gone up to the private offices of the CEO and not down to the exits.</p><p>__________________________________________________________________________</p><p>The day after she arrived at office on time as always.</p><p>A huge smile opened through her face after she had found all her files restored as the night before.</p><p>And her smile doubled when two desks from her, a dumbass named Martin stood up screaming: “WHAT THE FUCK??? WHERE ARE ALL MY REPORTS GONE??? WHAT’S THIS SMILING SKULL?”</p><p>Everybody just stood up to go checking the problem, and she thought a good idea to follow them, by thinking on dead pets to manage not to laugh hard at the guy’s concern. When they crossed eyes he was on the verge of a crisis, and he started accusing her of sabotage. But since he had already accused other five colleagues in the meanwhile, nobody took him seriously.</p><p>Only when their chief showed up, they all run quietly to their desks, by witnessing as Martin got badly scolded and then send to internal affairs for a report. And he had to consider himself on suspension until further notice.</p><p>She passed a normal working morning at her desk, and she managed to complete, print, sign and send her report to the chief of human resources with two days of advantage. Not that she hoped to have any reward for this, but she thought she could spend her last days of working at Stark Industries in a more relaxed way.</p><p>She took a note of buying Mr. Stark a coffee mug to thank him: he wouldn’t probably needed or remembered it, but she thought it was the right thing to do before leaving forever and never cross his path again.</p><p>She went out alone for lunch and passed by a nice 99-cents shop where she had seen a very odd red mug with the golden writing “Genius” and an “up” arrow.</p><p>“That’s just perfect for Mr. Stark!” she thought with a smile.</p><p>She went back to the office still smiling. She put the small present on her desk and went to the coffee machine to pour herself some hot coffee before the afternoon working.</p><p>That was when she heard two aged colleagues speaking with worried tones about an incident that has occurred to Mr. Stark the night before.</p><p>“What incident?” she didn’t refrain from asking.</p><p>She usually didn’t indulge in chatting and small talk, but she was worried: she had seen Mr. Stark yesterday night and he was fine.</p><p>The other two women looked at her like they had probably looked at a skinny stray with fleas. One of her, a tall Indian secretary with long curly hair in a ponytail, just turned back to her desk, quickly followed by the other one, who should be her assistant.</p><p>“Didn’t you know?” she heard a voice behind her.</p><p>And there stood one of the other interns, a young white woman with long black hair named Maria something, Hill maybe. She wasn’t quite a chatter herself, and she had liked her because she wasn’t rushing to have a job. She seemed to be here just to make experience, but to have already other plans in mind.</p><p>“Know what?” she asked her.</p><p>“It was the rumor of the day in the cafeteria… oh yeah, you weren’t there! Apparently, Mr. Stark had had another of his playboy adventures, only that this time it didn’t involve a woman…”</p><p>“Oh?” she simply replied, thinking on how she was supposed to react. She noticed that Maria was checking on her reaction, so she quickly added: “That’s it? The whole ‘accident’ is just Mr. Stark being bisexual?”</p><p>She wasn’t sure on why the other girl smiled a bit, but she has turned very serious when she added: “Unfortunately not. It appears that Mr. Stark had a… let’s call it a rush encounter with yesterday night lad, whoever he was, and he ended up in a private clinic. But the news is already out, together with other unpleasant details like a suspect drug abuse and things like that...”</p><p>She gasped in horror: to think that Mr. Stark was just here chatting and smiling with her and a few hours later he has ended up in hospital it was… well, unbelievable.</p><p>But there was something in that story that she couldn’t get so she asked: “I beg your pardon, but how did they know he was with a man?”</p><p>“Because they found traces…” the other started, blushing a bit.</p><p>“Yeah they called them traces!” another intern, a Jaime something, loudmouth daddy boy who didn’t need to earn money to live. He was laughing hard with some pals of his kind, who were nodding and laughing idiotically near him. “I call it cum! You got it, Potts: they found cum inside Mr. Stark’s ass… now tell me the guy’s a genius and I’ll just reply he’s a damn faggot!”</p><p>She stood, frozen inside and incapable to react, to both the news and most of all the comments. A quick look around the office, and it was clear Jaime’s reaction was not an isolated one. She felt sick.</p><p>But then she looked at Maria who has marched in front of the guy, who was quite double her size, and simply told him: “Say it again.”</p><p>He stood, taller than hair of a good head. He pushed his chin towards her, aggressively like a monkey and repeated: “Tony Stark is just a faggot who got fucked in his ass…”</p><p>At least that was what he wanted to say, because the last part ended in a gasp, when Maria had placed a good kick with her knee directly on his balls. She smiled at his red faces, and places two good fists, one in his belly and one on his right chin, making him land heavily on his desk and throwing everything down.</p><p>“What’s the meaning of this?” the floor chief now intervened. “Hill! You are fired! Get out immediately! And prepare to defend in court for aggression!”</p><p>“Yeah, of course!” she laughed at him. “Like Mr. Ivory here wanted to make public that he got kicked in his jewels by a woman half his size…”</p><p>The chief was purple and so were many other colleagues, but someone started to laugh.</p><p>“And thank you for firing me” Maria added, waving away. “You spared me other two days with you dumbasses talking about things you don’t get!”</p><p>“YOU!” the chief had pointed his right finger towards Potts. She frowned. “You’re Potts right?”</p><p>She nodded, terrified.</p><p>She was about to being fired as well, she thought.</p><p>And that meant not having a reference letter for her next job. Even worse: she was going to have a bad reference letter, practically closing every doors for her in the whole New York and maybe on the West Coast.</p><p>“You have been called upstairs!” the chief instead said. He had a malicious look in his eyes when he added: “You were requested by Mr. Stane. Personally!”</p><p>She swallowed and nodded, and then she made her way to the elevator, the comments and whispers of the colleagues like a background noise.</p><p>She arrived at the top floors for the first time since she was here, and she took a while to understand that she was in the same building. Everything here appeared larger and better looking, with expensive tapestry, expensive marble and mahogany, and… was that an indoor vertical garden? She noticed a huge desk in front of her, from which two women were staring suspiciously at her.</p><p>She regain her composure and tried to appear confident when she said: “Good afternoon. My name’s Virginia Potts. I’m an intern here. I was told that Mr. Stane wanted to see me.”</p><p>The look the two made at her, and then between them made her skin crawl. They were like ‘evaluating’ her, like you did with the meat at the market… she felt naked in front of them and she needed all her self-control not to cover her neck more with an hand.</p><p>“I had to call Mr. Stane and see if he’s ready to <em>receive</em> you” one the two said, picking up a phone.</p><p>She nodded a couple of times, then she pointed at one door on the extreme left of the floor. It was a huge door with an impressive decoration over it.</p><p>She had just moved halfway through when the door opened and a smiling Obadiah Stane greeted her with a loud: “Miss Potts! I’m glad you’ve come here immediately! Please, be my guest! Janice, darling, bring us a coffee, but of the good quality: miss Potts here is an expert!”</p><p>She blushed a bit, surprised and honored that a man like him has remembered that small detail.</p><p>She went inside in front of him and couldn’t help herself by noticing the smell of cigar that surrounded Mr. Stane, and, obviously, Mr. Stane’s office. It was indeed a big office, with an entire wall occupied by a huge window, a gigantic monitor on another, and a small area dedicated to refreshments, completed with a huge leather black couch and armchairs.</p><p>He waved to her to take a sit, and took one of the armchair, trying her best to maintain a professional look without appearing too much impressed by the display of power around her.</p><p>“Impressive, right?” he said her still with a bright smile. He took a sit on the couch, at the opposite side of her, spreading and lighting up a cigar. “I hope you don’t mind, miss Potts, but this is a vice this old man has…”</p><p>She shook her head: she hate the smell of smoke but obviously she can’t tell in that situation. “Of course, Mr. Stane. No problem at all.”</p><p>The way he looked at her made her tremble in every bones: she knew that look, like the one of a buyer evaluating his purchase.</p><p>“Why am I here?” she thought. “What if I just stand up and run away?”</p><p>Instead she stayed silent, until the door opened again and one of the secretary, Janice then, entered with a tray with two small cup of coffee. She put it down on the small table in front of them and she went away, only with a final unimpressed look to her.</p><p>“Sugar?” Stane was offering.</p><p>“N- no, thank you. I’d prefer it black and plain, no milk or sugar” she said, by taking the plate with cup he was offering her. She noticed the crafts of the cup, but then the small of its content enchanted her. “That… that’s Italian coffee!” she almost screamed, fascinated.</p><p>“And one of the best quality, but you’d be the one to tell me!” Mr. Stane replied, obviously amused. “I made the purchase directly from Italy after your comments that time, and although I am not particularly fond of coffee I have to admit that this Italian machine and blend are totally different from the schlop we usually take!”</p><p>She didn’t know what to say, astonished by everything. What was going on?</p><p>“Well, coming to business,” Mr. Stane followed, while they’ve finished their coffee. “I’ve heard that you are about to finish your internship here in a couple of days, Miss Potts.”</p><p>“That is correct, Mr. Stane” she replied, politely. “Friday will be my last day here at Stark Industries, and I wish to say that it has been an extremely productive and growing experience for me.”</p><p>He nodded, studying her expression silently.</p><p>She had to appeal again to all her control not to frown before those eyes. Why was he scaring her so much? He was doing nothing bad or unprofessional.</p><p>“Productive and growing…” he muttered. Then he added: “Well, Miss Potts, for what I’ve witnessed and read from your superior’s report, you’ve managed to turn yourself quite indispensable for our board meeting!”</p><p>“Did I?” she asked, incredulous.</p><p>“Of course! You reports were extremely detailed but with not too many words in it, an extremely appreciated characteristic. And I’ve learnt that you usually worked also late at night if a project has to be finished…”</p><p>“A not-so-well appreciated characteristics to some of my colleagues” she made her slip from her mouth, immediately biting her tongue and mentally swearing at herself.</p><p>Bur Mr. Stane was observing her with extremely focused and icy eyes that contrasted with the huge smile he had still on when he commented: “Ah, miss Potts! The hard workers are always unappreciated by lazy people! I suggest you learn not to consider the opinion of the sheep if you want to continue to play among the lions!”</p><p>She nodded, still unsure of what he meant.</p><p>He smiled at her discomfort for a while and then stated: “I won’t play with you, Miss Potts, it wouldn’t be fair to a clever woman like you! So let’s put it simple: you’ve just finished college with excellent evaluations, you’re a good organizer and a quick learner. Last but not least, you can adapt easily at difficult working environments.”</p><p>She blushed a bit, pleased by all the compliments, but stayed silent.</p><p>“However,” the man added, “you are the daughter of two middle-class employees of the countryside, have been assigned to the social service at 16, and you’ve lived alone since then. You don’t have any other relatives or close friends. Am I correct?”</p><p>She frowned: how did he know all that?</p><p>“I-I-… yes, you are correct, Mr. Stane. My only family, my parents, died when I was 16, and I’ve managed alone since then.”</p><p>“Outstanding!” he cheered to her surprise. “And another reason why you’d be perfect for the job! Self-management, organization, and no problems for working out of hour or on weekends!”</p><p>“The… the job?” she asked.</p><p>His smile brightened. “Miss Potts, I am about to offer you a position as Mr. Stark’s personal assistant. A permanent position, unless you later decide to resign. The position includes a series of benefits you’ll find in the contract, but it comes also with major responsibilities and quite a lack of private life, I have to say.”</p><p>He studied her reactions, but she was astonished: she was not expecting that at all. But a fixed position at her age, without any background… personal assistant of one of the most powerful man in New York, or maybe in the USA due to the role of Stark Enterprises... That was simply unbelievable!</p><p>“All you need to do, miss Potts” Mr. Stane was saying, with a lower voice, “it’s saying ‘yes’.”</p><p>She stared at him, a strange sense of fear suppressed by the joy of not having to worry for her living anymore, not to have to battle each month or decide if eating was more important than paying the light tax at home. That day had turned incredibly in a couple of hours!</p><p>“Y-yes!” she nodded, and she couldn’t refrain the tears in her eyes.</p><p>“Here, here…” he said with a smile, moving towards her and holding her a silk handkerchief. He didn’t make her uncomfortable this time, he just seemed like an old uncle moved by the reaction of his young niece.</p><p>“I- I’m sorry for being emotional, Mr. Stane” she said, quickly cleaning her eyes.</p><p>She tried to give the handkerchief back, but he signed her to keep it.</p><p>“It’s about normal, my child!” he said, paternalistic. “You’ve just received a life-change news! Tell me, miss Potts, are you happy of the offering?”</p><p>“I am, Mr. Stane!” she nodded. “I’m really, really happy…”</p><p>“Very well!” he said, standing and offering her an hand to do the same.</p><p>He guided her to his desk and made her take one of the chair in front of it, while he moved to the other side.</p><p>“Now let’s go with the formalities” he said, putting out a huge fold of papers. “This is your full contract, with privacy and all other stuff. You may have already noticed, since you’re quite smart, miss Potts, but part of Stark Industries activity is classified… and so are some part of Mr. Stark’s private activities and encounters. We don’t want that military secrets to go out from the wrong channels, do we?”</p><p>“No, sir” she nodded firmly.</p><p>She started to understand the entity of the task, and for a moment she wondered if she would be up to the job. But then she look back at the man, with a strong determination in her eyes, while repeating herself that she was Virginia Potts and she had nothing to prove or to fear.</p><p>“Very well, miss Potts.” Mr Stane replied, but he gave her a strange look, like he was evaluating an under-trace menace. “I’ll give you one afternoon to read and sign the whole contract on every page. For now, I just need your signature here on the preliminary one… for safety reasons!”</p><p>“Of course, Mr. Stane.”</p><p>He passed her a paper: she noticed that it has been already signed by Mr. Stark, and wondered when he has done that. The date on it was of yesterday.</p><p>She read carefully the paper before realizing she didn’t have a pen to sign it. But Mr. Stane was already holding her one of his own, and she had to stand and to bend a bit on the desk to take her. She appreciated that the man’s eyes remained on her own, without checking on her neckline like she was used to by mates and professors since Junior High.</p><p>However, when she took her pen, their fingers touched slightly and she frowned back, making the pen rolling on the carpet in front of her.</p><p>“I beg your pardon, Mr. Stane!” she said, embarrassed.</p><p>“Don’t worry, Miss Potts, it’s normal to be a bit emotional while signing such contracts!” the man laughed kindly.</p><p>He didn’t move, however, so she had to kneel on the floor to collect the pen, still blushing.</p><p>While she was raising back on her chair, she noted another object lining on the floor.</p><p>“A lollipop?” she thought, taking it as well.</p><p>“Oh, that!” he heard Mr. Stane’s saying. “I guess the cleaning ladies didn’t do a good job yesterday…”</p><p>Something in his tone made her look at him. Her head was spinning. She didn’t get what was going on, or why Mr. Stane seemed to be upset.</p><p>But it all lasted a few seconds before he smiled again at her and asked: “Should we proceed?”</p><p>“Oh… yes, yer, Mr. Stane. My bad…” she replied, and she signed the contract that was about to change her life.</p><p>“Wonderful!” Mr. Stane exclaimed, by putting away the silent page and giving her a copy and the huge folder with all the other documents.</p><p>“Now, Miss Potts” he said, relaxing in his chair. “The first trouble I’m asking you to take care of as Tony’s personal assistant is his well-being! I suppose you’ve heard what had happened to him yesterday night, right?”</p><p>“I- I heard a rumor” she said, hesitant.</p><p>“Uhm, yes, a rumor... it's already public! Well, I’m afraid to say that said rumor is true! Mr. Stark is now hospitalized in a private clinic, and he will need a couple of days to be well. My major concern in the meanwhile is to limit the impact of that rumor on this company, and in particular on our relationship with the military… I’m honest with you, miss Potts, if the company will be invested by such a scandal I don’t know if we manage to survive, or whether I’ll manage to have the Board not to throw Tony off his own company… and that for Tony will be devastating! You have to believe me here, Miss Potts, I know the boy since he was born, and I’ll think he would die of consumption if he can’t create his tech stuff!”</p><p>She nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation: it won’t be the first time a sexual scandal signed the end of a powerful empire. And Stark Enterprises worked with the Army and, despite everything, sexual scandals involving homoerotic relationships weren’t usually well seen, as testified by his former colleagues’ reactions.</p><p>“But this is my job!” Mr. Stane was saying. “Yours, miss Potts, is to guarantee that Mr. Stark follows the doctors’ order and play low for a while. Let’s say, for a couple of weeks. Everything clear?”</p><p>She nodded. “Of course, Mr. Stane! You can count on me!” she said.</p><p>She noticed a strange light in his eyes.</p><p>“Very well,” he said. He stood and waved her to follow him at the door.</p><p>She stood too and followed him while he continued to explain: “Obviously you will receive a proper Top badge to access all the Stark Industries facility, a dedicated credit card, a mobile and all that technological devices Tony’s so proud of. In the meanwhile, I wish you clean your desktop downstairs and take a taxi to go pay a visit to our genius in the hospital. Obviously you put the ticket on our account. What do you think, miss Potts?”</p><p>“It sounds like a good plan, Mr. Stane!” she replied.</p><p>But when they arrived at the door something awkward happened: instead of opening it, Mr. Stane put his hand over it, like to maintain it closed and at the same time block her way out. He was still smiling but his body language told something different, something to which her brain reacted with a sudden instinct of running or taking shelter.</p><p>“There’s one last thing I have to ask you, miss Potts,” he said to her, close, maybe too close. She felt the smell of cigar from his mouth. “Yesterday night, did you happen to meet Mr. Stark here?”</p><p>There was something terribly wrong not only in the question but in the overall situation, and it was really driving her basic survival instincts to crazy.</p><p>“No, Mr. Stane, I didn’t!” she replied calmly, by looking him firmly in the eyes.</p><p>She didn’t know why she had lied, but her mind was telling her that this was the only way out. The only way to turn from a prey into a predator!</p><p>And the shadow that passed into the man’s eyes seemed to confirm this. It seemed like he was already regretting to have made her signed for the job.</p><p>“Very well, then” he said, opening her the door.</p><p>Then he called his secretaries while she proceed through the corridor: “Janice! Wilma! Make sure Miss Potts will be given Top pass and everything she needed from the human resources: she’s Mr. Stark’s new assistant from now on! Miss Potts, I’m glad you have accepted this job. I’m sure you’re the best to fulfill our needs right now!”</p><p>She shook his hand and proceeded to the elevator with her best neutral smile on.</p><p>Only when the door closed she allowed herself a cheer and a small dance. Who cares about the creepy old man when she had had a lifetime opportunity? Good job, Potts!</p><p>She stopped exactly when the “ding” of the elevator announced that she had arrived at her floor, where she looked around at her previous familiar office.</p><p>She had never felt the feeling of everybody turning towards her, but now she experienced it: and it was amazing!</p><p>“Hey, Reddish!” one of the other male intern shouted to her. He hasn’t even bothered to know her name. “Have you got fired like your lesbian friend?”</p><p>She smiled icily to him. “Not that it’s your business, but I’ve got a promotion. So, lucky me, I will still work on Saturday but not with your dumb face in front of mine!”</p><p>Some laughed, and some cheered her. Many started to gossip on what the red-hair girl could have done to obtain the job: some sexual trick with the old Mr. Stane, for sure, that was the obvious innuendo.</p><p>She acted like she didn’t mind but she was hearing them and a part of her just wanted to shout them back, or punched them and their insinuations right in the face… like Maria did! Oh how she wanted to start punching people around!</p><p>But then she’d probably haven’t had the job, and she needed that job. And she wanted it because Mr. Stane was right: she was perfect for that job, and it was obvious that Mr. Stark needed a personal assistant to help him dealing with press conferences, professional duties and freeing him time to focus on what he did best, that is creating new extraordinary artifacts for the company.</p><p>She liked the genial guy: she couldn’t have told it from that brief appearance at the board meeting, but he could be caring and nice when taken privately. And she has felt his loneliness so similar to her own, which was weird due to the social difference between them… but then it was there!</p><p>She was collecting her things in a box, while her (now former) chief went in front of her holding a big envelope.</p><p>“This has just arrived from the human resources, miss Potts” he said, partially incredulous and partially curious. “I suspect these are related with your new job…”</p><p>“Oh!” she exclaimed. “So quick?”</p><p>She was a little surprised and curious as well so she didn’t think and just opened the envelope in front of everyone.</p><p>She extracted a Stark phone, last model, and she heard many whistling.</p><p>Another envelope with the writing “personnel licensed credit card”, which she put aside, and then a badge with her name, picture and the red writing “Top Class Personnel”.</p><p>“Wow, Potts!” her boss exclaimed, with a real taunting tone. “So you’re a personal assistant of the big boss now… it must be true what they say of red-headed women!”</p><p>“If they said they are smart as fuck, then they’re right!” she replied calmly, by putting everything in her box. She has imposed herself to never swear in public, but now it was needed to make her point loud and clear!</p><p>She smiled at everyone around. “Those months have been exceptional and I probably won’t miss many of you. Still I hope you’ve appreciated the coffee. Well, goodbye everyone! See you outside the office… or maybe not!”</p><p>And she went to the elevator mumbling a song she made up for the occasion to celebrate her new life.</p><p>She was about to close that chapter forever, while one of the permanent staff, the tall Indian woman who had seen at the coffee, rushed in the elevator with a sense of urgency.</p><p>As soon as the doors closed she turned towards her and ordered: “Give me a pen, now!”</p><p>She was astonished by she obeyed and watched as she wrote down something on a business card. She then hold her back both the pen and the business card. It said “Dr. Kamna Chander – senior consultant” with an email address and the office intern number belonging to the company. But in a corner she has written another phone number and it looked like a mobile one.</p><p>“That’s my personal number” she told her. “Only my family has it, so don’t sell it or use it improperly! Listen to me carefully, Potts: I was where you are now! So I wanted you to call me if you need to talk with someone. I know that things may get… well, complicated! But if you manage to stay silent and quiet, and maintain that smile on you, it will be over soon! And then you’ll get a new job, a regular one, without many compromises! And he will manage to give whatever you want: jewels, houses, also a family… but you have to behave and don’t complain with anyone, you hear me, Potts? And you have to remain strong! He is… a peculiar man!”</p><p>She was talking in a way that made her frown to the bones.</p><p>She had signed her contract (well, the preliminary one) since less than 30 minutes, and someone was already telling she was going to … what exactly? The implicit was quite clear, but she thought that maybe it was just her fantasy.</p><p>Yes, Mr. Stark was a peculiar man, but he didn’t seem of the predator kind. That was more like Mr. Stane… oh wait!</p><p>“Were you the personal assistant of Obadiah Stane?” she asked her.</p><p>She nodded, and she could notice that she seemed still a bit upset by hearing his name out loud.</p><p>She swallowed heavily and she noticed the tension on her face while she added: “Whatever happens, Potts, promise to call me! Don’t go to the police or to someone else, you hear me? He had friends in every governmental agency! And I suspect that you, like me back then, have no one else in your life… So, hear my words: play for yourself and for your future advantages! And never look back!”</p><p>The elevator has reached the ground floor, but she was hesitating in the attempts to process what the other woman had told her and what has just felt herself back in that office.</p><p>Then she stood outside and she turned briefly to the older woman.</p><p>“I’ll call you if I’m in trouble, but…” she said.</p><p>“But what, Potts?”</p><p>“But I’m not Mr. Stane’s new personal assistant. I’m Mr. Stark’s one. My Boss will be Tony Stark.”</p><p>She saw a mix of rage, hate and astonishment running through her face, but in the end she shrugged her shoulders and simply stated: “Well, good luck, then, Potts! The boy’s screwed! You’d wish to have run away from this madness in three days… and keep that card! It’d may still occur a good reference when you left!”</p><p>And with that she disappeared in the elevator.</p><p>Once alone, she tried to collect her thoughts, but she could think of is that she had a top class badge with the name “Virginia Potts” on it, and that she had to go meet her Boss who was now hospitalized.</p><p>The major worry now was to find a taxi, and the second worry was to make sure that Mr. Stark approved her nomination as his personal assistant.</p><p>And third… to find out what a personal assistant is supposed to do for Anthony Stark, the golden boy of Stark Industries.</p><p>_____________________________________________________________________</p><p>When she arrived at the clinic, someone had already called to alert them that Mr. Stark’s assistant would have come to visit, and to grant her full access and all the information she needed.</p><p>She was still carrying her box with all the working stuff from the former and actual employment, when she arrived in Mr. Stark’s private room (or it would have better called it a suite).</p><p>He noticed that the young man seemed asleep in a partial raised position: he appeared tired, and had some bruises on his faces. He was attached to some machines that made constantly a “bip”, probably for checking his heartbeats. He had an IV on his right arm but he was breathing on his own.</p><p>A nurse informed her that they’d perform a small surgery on his rectum, but that he’d be fine in a couple of days. However sexual encounters involving anal penetration must be suspended for a longer period to give him time to recover. And then she suggested to avoid such rush encounters and gave her a guide to safe sex.</p><p>The nurse has stated all of that without a trace of discomfort, which in reality was the only feeling in the new Mr. Stark’s assistant.</p><p>They had possibly presumed she was used to this, since she was his personal assistant, but she was really freshly nominated and so she had to figure out if this was an usual event, in order to prevent further hospitalization for extreme dangerous sexual activities. Maybe that was also part of the duties of a personal assistant, and she only hasn’t reach that part of the contract yet.</p><p>“As for the drugs” the nurse continued. “He has suffered of hallucinations and kept mumbling a weird song. He may still have some residuals in the upcoming days, so don’t mind if he talked to ghosts or seemed scare. He’ll be fine in a couple of days, and for the rest he’s clean now. Any question, miss…?”</p><p>“Potts” she replied. “Miss Virginia Potts, and as you probably know I’m Mister Stark’s new assistant. And yes I have one question, or maybe two. Number one, when do you think it’d be possible to let Mr. Stark go home? I’m in charge to keep him quiet and out of troubles for at least two weeks.”</p><p>“I need to speak with the doctors, but maybe he could be released tomorrow. What’s your second question?”</p><p>She thought for a moment about the strategy to use, but then she decided she was too tired to quibble and so she went direct to her objective.</p><p>“I need to access Mr. Stark’s full medical records, including this and previous episodes that may be related to the present situation. And, as you can imagine, I need them now.”</p><p>The nurse was a bit astonished, but she nodded and went away, murmuring that that sounded more like an order than a request.</p><p>When alone, she proceeded to put a chair next to Mr. Stark’s bed and to take a closer look on him.</p><p>He had indeed signs of bruises on his faces, and also a big blue one on his neck, like someone had grabbed him hard over there. She swallowed because that could have been tremendously serious: a bit much of pressure or the wrong angle, and his collarbone would be broken. He had no other visible injuries but from the medical record at the end of the bed, she found confirmation of a surgery and on several injuries on Mr. Stark’s rectum, which the doctors believed to have caused by the forced insertion of some objects.</p><p>There were also many other names she didn’t comprehend and needed to check up later.</p><p>For the moment she was trying to put together the three images of Tony Stark she had encountered so far.</p><p>The first was the arrogant billionaire who arrived late at the meetings of his own company and thought only on the coffee quality.</p><p>The second was the caring brilliant nerd, who has helped a literal no one just because someone had made a bad prank on her and she was working late at night to repair that.</p><p>And the third was the sick young man who had took drugs and performed some dangerous sex with an unknown person, by risking both his own life and the property of his company for… what exactly? An erotic tantrum?</p><p>She wasn’t a doctor, but Mr. Stark’s conditions looked more like a rape, even if no one was saying the word out loud. And who could have indeed raped Mr. Stark in his own company?</p><p>She didn’t know why, but she had the sensation that there was something more. That there was a reason why the three “Tony Stark” she had met seemed to belong to three different persons but they were in reality the same one. But most of all, it should be a reason if the day before at 10 PM Mr. Stark was helping her with the computer, and 16 hours late he was in a hospital bed with bruises and a rectum surgery.</p><p>“That’s a good food for thoughts, Potts” she told to herself, while sitting next to the bed. “The other could be: what has Obadiah Stane to do in all this?”</p><p>Maybe it was just a coincidence he had offered her that place, since she had submitted her report in advance with respect to her colleagues… but then why she had felt the urgency of lying to him about having met Mr. Stark in her office at 10 P.M.? And why did he ask by the way? Did he know and was just checking her loyalty or what? And how did he know?</p><p>But most important, why Stane’s previous assistant has rushed to talk to her and she had said and done what she had said and done, the subject being Mr. Stane? A coincidence?</p><p>“This was really suspicious, and we Potts don’t believe in coincidence” she repeated to herself.</p><p>Still she felt she was lacking something, like a piece of the puzzle that was just right in front of her nose a moment before but now it had disappeared.</p><p>She couldn’t thing much of it, because in that moment she heard that Tony Stark was awakening. She noticed how he remained still, while he was looking around with extremely worried eyes. He seemed scared.</p><p>“Mr. Stark?” she called him gently and he immediately turn towards her. His eyes confirmed her suspicion: he was clearly trying to process things, like he didn’t know where he was.</p><p>But before she could say anything, he was speaking with a hoarse voice: “I know your face… Hi, Miss Potts! The girl who knows coffee…”</p><p>She smiled at him, quite surprised he had remembered. That was the second time that day.</p><p>“Maybe you should put it in your CV” he was following, even if his throat probably ached. “God knows if I need a coffee expert in my life…”</p><p>“On that matter, Mr. Stark…” she took the occasion to speak.</p><p>She noticed that he stood immediately silent and... vigilant? Like she was about to tell him some terrible news.</p><p>“Are you all right?” he asked, and he sounded sincerely worried. “Are you hurt?”</p><p>“I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Stark, thank you!” she replied, wondering why he had ask. Maybe just because they were in a hospital? But he was staring at her so she had no time to think about it, and she explained: “Mr. Stark, a few hours ago your vice, Mr. Obadiah Stane, had called me in his private office, and he had offered me a permanent position at Stark Industries. As you may remember, yesterday evening you helped me recover the data I needed to ultimate my report at the end of my internship.”</p><p>He nodded, but she noticed he was frowning.</p><p>“Well, Mr. Stark, I make it easy: I’m honored to have being offered this job, which I have accepted. So, from now on, I’m your new personal assistant!”</p><p>He seemed really shocked. “You … what?” he asked, incredulous.</p><p>“Your new personal assistant” she repeated, slowly, and a bit at discomfort.</p><p>She had just occurred to her that maybe Mr. Stark didn’t want her as his personal assistant, or maybe he didn’t want a personal assistant at all. But then why he has already signed the paper himself? What has changed in that past weird night?</p><p>She quickly added: “I have now reasons to believe that you knew nothing about this nomination and that it must have been everything a Mr. Stane’s idea. In that case, I ask you, Mr. Stark, to please let me know if you’re upset with my new role as your assistant, because in that case I will resign immediately. I still have to sign all those papers by the way…”</p><p>Tony Stark remained silently for a while, like evaluating the situation with its pros and cons.</p><p>“Just tell me one thing, Miss Potts” he then asked, by staring in her bright eyes. “Did you tell Mr. Stane about yesterday night? I mean, about the fact that we met at your office and that I helped you with that virus on your computer?”</p><p>She shook her head. “I- I didn’t, Mr. Stark.”</p><p>“But did he ask you, didn’t he?”</p><p>There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t evaluate, but she decided to tell him the truth, like he deserved it.</p><p>“I- I am a bit ashamed to tell you, Mr. Stark, but when Mr. Stane asked me if I’ve met you yesterday… I- I’ve lied to him and said I didn’t. I don’t know exactly why I did this… it just seemed the right thing to do at the moment!”</p><p>He considered her answer for a moment, in astonishment.</p><p>“Good” he just said, then, by closing his eyes. “Don’t tell this to anyone ever again, Miss Potts! Please...”</p><p>“Yes, Mr. Stark, as you wish.”</p><p>She wondered the reason of this request, as well as on the reasons of Mr. Stane’s question and why he had phrased it that way.</p><p>Some times in the future she would have known that Mr. Stane had witnessed everything that had happened on the floor through a security camera, and that he had been upset of Tony’s delay and of Tony having already enrolled her as his personal assistant, by taking her away from him. And Stane was so upset to act out of plan and injure him badly. And she would have known that Tony had refused to put her in danger, he had stopped him as he could, the bruises on his throat and body testifying it. He had beard all the injuries to avoid the possibility that the older man went down and hurt miss Potts, a young intern who happened to be here by accident.</p><p>She didn’t know then, but she would in the future, that when she had talked about the coffee, Tony Stark had liked her and wanted to have her close, because he had seen something beautiful in that red-haired girl.</p><p>He would tell her that he saw like a sparkle of fire, and he wanted a bit of warm from that fire… He wanted to be her friend… in the only way he knew to make friends, that is by turning them into his employees.</p><p>So it had been Stark’s idea all along, and he had took that decision and signed the papers that afternoon!</p><p>And that had made Stane more mad at him, by thinking he was escaping his control, and because he wanted Miss Potts for himself.</p><p>But in the end, maybe also because he had hurt him so much, he had decided to indulge on that idea of his young genius, to put a normal woman without political influence or powerful knowledges by the side of the man he was desperately trying to control.</p><p>Stane had thought she would have turned her into his willingly or unwillingly spy and the help of the puppeteer. Instead, she had greatly disappointing him when she had lied in his face… disappointing and arousing him at the same time, by putting her in a very dangerous position she was for now not aware of.</p><p>“May I ask you one other thing, miss Potts?” she heard Mr. Stark’s asking behind his closed eyes.</p><p>“Of course, Mr. Stark!”</p><p>“It’s a personal question, though…”</p><p>“Oh!” she only said. Already?</p><p>“May I call you Pepper in private?” he sighed. “Like now, for example… you can call me Tony. I like when people call me Tony…”</p><p>“Pepper, sir?” she asked back.</p><p>He opened his eyes and looked at her, worried. “If you don’t like, I’ll drop it, it doesn’t mind… do you have a favored nickname?”</p><p>She smiled a bit. “No, Mr. Stark, it’s fine.” She said. “It’s just that they called me ‘Pepper’ back in school… when I was a child.”</p><p>“For your firing spirit?” he asked. And he appeared awkwardly honest.</p><p>She shook her head in amusement. “For the freckles!” she confessed.</p><p>They both laughed, with Tony then lamenting that laughing hurt his throat.</p><p>“Pepper, then…” he stated, by closing his eyes again and resting. “I like you…Pepper Potts!”</p><p>And with that, Virginia “Pepper” Potts was like born again to life. In a new, unpredictable and absolutely crazy way.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Tony, the roses & the lollipop</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Pepper has to deal with the different Tony Stark's personalities. Until she found out a terrible shadow hiding in the shiniest light!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being Tony Stark’s assistant was worse than difficult: it could be a nightmare!</p><p>Because there was not one Tony Stark, which would have been already more than enough, but different of them!</p><p>She had realized it after only a couple of weeks spent almost entirely together.</p><p>Firstly it came the genial inventor. The guy was indeed the perfect stereotype of the “no-rules-genius”, and he seemed not to have any ideas on how to take care of himself properly. For instance, he could pass days and nights in his house or in his lab projecting and creating, while completely forgetting of eating, drinking and getting some rest. Or he could decide out of nowhere that he had had a brilliant idea and rush to the Stark Industries’ lab, kicking off the guys at ordinary work and start to assemble some amazing things just from scratch. It was beyond incredible how he could look at an object and imagine a new world of possibilities from it. And Pepper had realized that some of the “ordinary” engineers at work were just upset by that show-off of genius, while other literally adored Mr. Stark and were beyond honored to just have passed him a screwdriver.</p><p>Then there was the billionaire playboy, or ‘billionaire playboy philanthropist’ who moved from party to party, from charity event to charity event, every night, drinking always a bit too much, dancing and chatting with everybody. The golden boy of Stark Industries and the most wanted bachelor. The rumors of his supposed homoerotic relationships didn’t have softened the interest around him: quite the opposite, now he has become an obvious prey from both women and men of every age, especially in some exclusive high-society party when some level of “eccentricity”, as they called it back then, was all but normally accepted.</p><p>And Pepper had to learn how to help his Boss with hangovers, how to manage him and herself at social events (thanks for her, Mr. Stark had allowed her a huge check to make a new full wardrobe, including shoes, jewelry and bags). And she had learnt how to deal with the one-night-performers, who so willingly fell right into Tony’s arms and then into his bed, and had to be dismissed the day after, without Tony had to bother for them or even caring to remember their names.</p><p>By look at him from the outside, it would have seemed like any other rich douchebag, but Pepper had learnt that he actually worked a lot to make Stark Industries one of the best one in his field. Sometimes he was so focused at working to forget to eat and drink for 12 hours, so that the first times she recovered him on the floor, dehydrated. From those times on, she had an alarm every three hours to get him something to drink, maybe a milkshake or a smoothie, and to change the snacks she had put around his lab. She knew Tony was grateful for this by the simple little smile he gave her from above his last creation.</p><p>And then there was also something more in him than the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.</p><p>A sort of third Tony, which Pepper has nicknamed “the child” in her mind. He was the one who dragged himself around the house in pajamas or wrapped himself on the couch into a big hoodie twice his size, and just indulged into binge watching TV all evening, while she patiently stayed on the armchair working. The first times she had supposed that his behavior meant that she had to go work elsewhere, but when she had tried to get out, he had almost cried her to stay in a sort of panic. She had managed to calm him down after a couple of minutes, but that had freaked her out a lot. She had started to suspect that the rumors may have been true, and that the brilliant genius had some mental issues nobody talked aloud. But apart from some minor anxiety crisis, she hasn’t witnessed nothing out of normality.</p><p>Indeed “child-Tony” could also be the one calling her to his apartment just to show her the new amazing things he had created, to make her playing cards against his new robot, to see if the neural network he had implemented worked fine. And, sometimes, just to eat pizza or chitchat to spare time.</p><p>That way she had known a lot about Tony Stark the man. And her first impression of him was indeed quite right: he was very lonely!</p><p>Child-Tony has also been the one showing her around his house, two days after they’ve met and he was out of the hospital. And he was so proud of his tech artifacts and everything, and then also on the amazing things in her new apartment, a floor right under his own, with a private elevator to connect them.</p><p>But then the child has just disappeared or grown up very fast when he had added by looking her straight in her eyes: “You would be the only one able to use this elevator to go into your apartment. You will use this private key I’m giving you, Miss Potts. I… I don’t have it, okay? There’s only one copy, so don’t lose it! And when you’re at home at night, you’d be fine, okay? Nobody would enter your room without your permission!”</p><p>“I… thank you, Tony…” she had replied, quite astonished by that.</p><p>Why was Tony Stark so worried about people coming at night? Was it just a childish nightmare or there was something more?</p><p>But then he had changed his humor again and with a large smile he had guided her upstairs again, because he wanted to introduce her to the other person living in his apartment.</p><p>She had been quite surprised firstly to know that he didn’t live alone, as she thought, and that that the ‘person’ Mr. Stark was referring to was not a living thing… well, maybe it all depended on the way “life” was defined.</p><p>“Jarvis!” Mr. Stark had called out loud. “This is Miss Potts. She has already survived three days with me, one of which at the hospital, so maybe she’d like to stay…”</p><p>“Nice to finally meet you, miss Potts. Mister Stark seemed to like you, and I’m sure we can become friends!”</p><p>The voice she had heard all around her definitively belong to an old man, with a British accent. But it was just a voice, and she saw no-one there.</p><p>“Nice to meet you, Mister Jarvis…” she had babbled, by looking around to Tony’s major amusement.</p><p>“It’s an AI” he had explained with a big smile. “An Artificial Intelligence, and of the learning kind. He’s still not fully operative, but when he’ll be he would be really helpful to both you and me, Peps!”</p><p>“Peps? AI?” she was thinking. That was a bit too much for her third working day.</p><p>She would get used to that level of weirdness in a couple of weeks.</p><p>But the genius was going on explaining, with his usual enthusiasm: “I’ve modeled him on my friend Jarvis, the real man. I’ll give you a picture so you won’t create a weird imaginary of him just basing on his voice! I had his voice samples and modeled the AI around… it’s something that took me years of work and he’s still not perfect!”</p><p>“I’m sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Mr. Stark!” the AI replied and he seemed… sarcastic?</p><p>“A-ah cut the crap, Jarvis!” Tony was laughing. “You know what I mean… but don’t worry! I’d need still a couple of months and you would do everything I can’t do myself!”</p><p>“I hope this include taking a better care of yourself!” Jarvis replied, sarcastically again.</p><p>“What for? I’ve you and Miss Potts here for this!”</p><p>He had smiled at her, a big large and confident smile.</p><p>And she had felt lost in that smile, in that need of not being alone, and to be loved and appreciated despite every flaws.</p><p>Many years later, after many good and bad things have happened, Tony Stark would have confessed her what she already knew, that he has no-one but her in his life. And she would have replied that she as well had no-one else but him, her Boss, Mr. Stark… or simply herTony.</p><p>But those time were long way to go, and, for now, she had just to figure out how to manage the different Tonys, the genius, the billionaire playboy and the child, without hurting one for the benefit of the other.</p><p>______________________________________________________</p><p>In the first months after her employment, she had also discovered a couple of weird facts about Tony Stark.</p><p>First of all, sometimes he didn’t know where he was, especially when he woke up, and certainly he had no clues of the day and month he was living in. It was difficult to think that a math genius like him had troubles with the date system or with the watch, but simply he didn’t work well with the calendars. So notions like “by the end of the month” didn’t mean a lot to him since he didn’t know which day was it. That was why he was always late with his projects.</p><p>After having realized it, she had started to change her communications by substituting those expressions with easier one that gave him the exact amount of days and nights (or hours) he had at disposal for providing said projects or prototypes to the board meeting, or when he was supposed to give a public speech and things like that. She could say that Mr. Stark’s productivity has improved and he had also relaxed since she had installed this new system of communication.</p><p>The Board meeting and the technical committee have also quite appreciated that overtly, so she was not too surprised when Mr. Stane sent her a brunch of roses to thank her for this first result. She took the side note that he had chosen yellow roses, which could also mean jealousy, but it must have been an accident, or maybe one of his assistant has made that order on purpose.</p><p>What she didn’t expected was Tony’s reactions when he saw the roses around her apartment.</p><p>She had told him she had a small electric problem, and he has offered to come down to fix it for her.</p><p>He had also proposed her to install a direct communicator she could easily turn off at any moment (he seemed paranoiac on her privacy, although he did not pay much attention on his own). He was explaining her something on the electric devices of the houses, and of the reason while that one broke, when he noticed the roses. And he frowned when he knew who had sent them.</p><p>“Did he come here?! Pepper, talk to me: did Obadiah send the roses here?!” he was almost shouting, on the verge on hysteria.</p><p>He was scaring her. “What? No, Tony, no… He sent them at your apartment… they’ve arrived yesterday at noon while you were still sleeping. There was a note for me, so I think they were meant for me… and you don’t like flowers around…”</p><p>He was panting hard but then he nodded.</p><p>“Did you change the vase before coming down?” he asked, frantically.</p><p>“What? Y-yes, I took a new one from your kitchen… you never use them!”</p><p>“Okay, okay, fine. But have you checked them?”</p><p>“Checked… like the flowers?” she asked, even more perplexed.</p><p>“Checked them!” he repeated, quickly throwing the roses out of their vases and inspecting them carefully, a bit too rough. He didn’t seem to find anything, and he put them back in their vase, noticing that they were now a bit messy.</p><p>“I- I’m sorry… I’ve ruined them… I ruin everything I touch…” he sounded really ashamed.</p><p>“It’s all right, Tony” she tried to say, still quite worried about that reaction.</p><p>He seemed to be shaking a bit: maybe he was not feeling well, since he has spent all the previous day in bed, and that morning was acting quite weird, like he was trying to be chill on purpose but there was something upsetting him.</p><p>She asked: “Do you feel well, Tony?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I fell off while working…”</p><p>“Sorry… But when?”</p><p>“What?” he replied. He sounded scared.</p><p>“You said you fell off while working… when did it happen?” she asked.</p><p>That was weird: yesterday it has been in bed all day, and she had had to take him a soup inside his private room like a mother with a sick child, and only because Jarvis had insisted. And the day before they’ve been together the whole day for charity activities around the town… so when did he hurt himself working? Maybe he went up at night because he couldn’t sleep? It wouldn’t have been the first time, but still it sounded weird he could have hurt himself inside his own apartment. And everything was clean and at its place the day after, no sign of troubles.</p><p>And now he wasn’t answering, but he was just studying her with a sad look.</p><p>“Don’t worry too much, Miss Potts” he said with a tense smile. “Now your house is fixed and you’re safe. That was the only thing that matters! And tomorrow Rhodey will be back in town so you can have some free time for yourself while we make the bad boys around …”</p><p>Pepper has known colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, just a couple of months before.</p><p>And they have immediately become some sort of friends, to the major concern of Tony, who had sounded a bit jealous of their instant bond. They have mocked him a bit, especially from Rhodey’s part, before telling out loud that their only bond would have been for Tony’s safety. So when Rhodes was around him, Pepper was sure nothing (too) bad was going to happen to her Boss, apart from some scandal articles about the golden boy enjoying himself at big parties… but that was quite normal!</p><p>So for a day or only an evening she could relax a bit, maybe enjoying the big bathtub she had in her room or eating ice cream in bed while watching TV-series all night. It didn’t happen often to have some free time when you were Tony Stark’s personal assistant, so sometimes it was just good to have nothing to do for a while.</p><p>That time the mention of Rhodes had the power to close the “rose-trouble”.</p><p>And the day after Pepper found a huge brunch of rose, white and orange roses on Mr. Stark’s table in the kitchen with a note:</p><p>“<em>Sorry for your flowers. Hope you like these ones more. Tony</em>”.</p><p>It was the first time he had ordered something by himself for her, and she had appreciated the colors, still wondering if the genius knew the meaning. But she said that probably he only acted on instinct, since it was impossible that Tony Stark was even a bit interested in the language of flowers. Still, she was pleased, and she tossed away the old ruined yellow roses for these ones.</p><p>She also took an orange one and preserved it inside of a book together with his note.</p><p>_____________________________________________________________</p><p>The most difficult part to manage with Tony Stark were social events and conference presses.</p><p>After a couple of weeks, Pepper has realized she was totally unprepared for this part of the job, since she had studied marketing and economy and not communication or media managing. So she had called the former Mr. Stane’s assistant (on her working number) and asked her for an official and paid consultation on that part of the job. Miss Chander wasn’t quite in the mood of helping her, and Pepper had to play a bit dirty: she had stated that Mr. Stane would have been really disappointed with her if she didn’t manage that part satisfyingly.</p><p>She felt a bit sick to have played that card, but she wasn’t so sure it was a complete lie. And as she thought, it worked and the older woman had made her a crush-course in conference press organization, by also passing her some notes on different journalists, their orientations, flaws and so on. She had worked on that basis to upgrade it with the new faces she began to encounter and chat with at social events, most of the time without immediately revealing she was Mr. Stark’s personal assistant.</p><p>Still it was a hell of a time to have to deal with the press when the subject was Tony’s personal life (which was the vast majority of the time!).</p><p>Of his many personalities, the eccentric billionaire was the one Pepper hated the most, even more than the playboy.</p><p>But Tony was just Tony in every forms he went around: just too much in everything he did, like he was always acting at the centre of stage. Maybe it was because he was born a “Stark”, son of an entrepreneur and a child prodigy, his life constantly told by the press. The “golden boy” they called him back then, and the nickname remained on him, especially when he shaved his beard and looked more childish. Pepper had never got why he did it, and it seemed just a random whim.</p><p>During those months, Pepper had studied a lot about him, his company, his partners, not only the financial and business activity, but also their personal life. She already knew that Tony has lost his parents at a young age, but she didn’t know that in the last part of his life Howard Stark had turned quite violent, especially against his young and only son. That was a rumor she could confirm from Tony’s own medical record, a very top secret file, as she named it, which included a serious hospitalization for bruises and blows when he was only 12. That was the first of many others, also after Mr. Stark senior was gone, but many of them involved sexual activities too, so they would probably be linked by some one-night performers she has become so good at kicking out kindly in the morning. She has also discovered that Jarvis was Howard’s butler, and then he was fired when Tony was 12 (a coincidence?), and then he was back by Tony’s side when he was 19. Also that Mr. Stane had a wife but no children, and Tony has been assigned under his custody when his parents died and until he had come at age. Then he had moved alone, again with his father’s old butler Jarvis, until the old man has been killed in a robbery while he was making normal errands for his young Mr. Stark.</p><p>It was like loneliness followed Tony Stark for all his life, since also his only friend Rhodey was often outside the country for work.</p><p>All things considered, it was less weird that the genius has built an AI with his butler’s voice who was more and more acting like a living and caring person. And Pepper could swear to have heard Jarvis singing a song to Tony to help him sleep, one day that he was sick again and wanted only to stay in bed.</p><p>However, all that knowledge couldn’t avoid that during parties and social events Tony acted simply unpredictable. And, unfortunately, the same happened during conference press or red carpet questions.</p><p>During one of those events, more or less two years after they’ve started to work together, Tony managed to say out loud that he liked both boys and girls, and that he knew since he was 12, despite people’s attempts at changing his mind with a belt. He was a bit drunk (as always in those occasions), and he had said it all in one breath, probably without even thinking of the consequences, and certainly not even remotely imagining the level of troubles he was going to put both Miss Potts and Mr. Stane into, even if on different fronts.</p><p>The Army, as well as a part of the more conservative press, didn’t take these kinds of statement lightly, and their main supporters were on the conservative side. So Mr. Stane had to deal with the politics, while Miss Potts had to deal with the press who has apparently gone crazy.</p><p>“I’m sorry…” Tony murmured to her the day after, by bringing her a coffee directly in the living room.</p><p>Mr. Stane has imposed him to stay away from the rumors, so she was frantically working in his living room to prepare a strategy to deal with the press.</p><p>She saw Tony sitting on the couch next to her: he curled up his knees on his chest and just looked at her.</p><p>She sighed: “It’s fine, Tony…”</p><p>“No, it’s not. You’re mad at me…”</p><p>“Well, yes, I’m a bit mad at… you…” she has stopped the moment she saw his big brown eyes with something like tears. “Oh, gosh, the child!” she thought. So she have shaken her head and smiled at him like a teacher with an exuberant pupil who needs to know his limits: “I’m not mad at you for what you’ve said, Tony. I’m just a little upset because I wasn’t ready… if you had just told me we could have prepared a strategy and made a good and complete declaration before having to rush to stop the rumors… and I haven’t had to work days and nights to settle this down. But don’t worry: in the end they will forget it and pass on to more important troubles!”</p><p>He didn’t seem completely reassured. “But do you hate me?” he asked her again.</p><p>“Oh, Tony! Would I be here if I hate you?” But she had suddenly realized that this was not the thing he wanted to hear, so she asked back: “Why do you think I should hate you?”</p><p>“Because I’m just a source of troubles…”</p><p>“Well, everyone makes troubles… and troubles from people in your position have just bigger or louder resonance.”</p><p>“Because I’m just an eccentric rich brat…”</p><p>She raised her eyebrow. “And where did you hear this one? Not certainly from me!” she stated firmly. “Listen, Tony, you are many things, and yes, you’re also eccentric. And yes, you sometimes act like a rich brat. But, Tony, you are the most caring people I’ve ever known! You spent half a day with those kids in that hospital when we were supposed to stay only one hour, and just because you had discovered they had troubles in the playroom with the TVs: you fixed them all and bought them a whole set of consoles, videogames and board games for them to play when they are under chemotherapy. And that’s just the most recent example! Do I have to remember that you helped me, an unnamed intern, with a bug on her computer, and literally change my life?”</p><p>He smiled a bit at her, this time. “I remember that night, you know? You bought me that mug for that… And I like it!” he confessed.</p><p>It was still his favorite mug. “Still, I thought I’ve asked you not to refer to that night with anyone…”</p><p>“Don’t worry, it’s not like I have tons of friends to speak to about how a girl from a middle-class family ended up being the personal assistant of Anthony Stark!”</p><p>He laughed at her joke, but still he was worried: “But they ask you about that, don’t they? And what do you say then?”</p><p>She winked at him. “I appeal to their fantasy…”</p><p>“Wait!” he frowned. “So they would think that you… that’s not fair! You’re brilliant, and you’ve deserved this job! Why do you want them to believe you gained it only in exchange of… something!”</p><p>She was a little amused, but also honored, of his discomfort.</p><p>“First of all, I’m surprised the playboy referred to you-know-what as “something”!” she mocked him a bit. “Secondly, do you believe that they wouldn’t think of it anyway? The moment I’ve got that badge, they’ve started to make sexual insinuations… And that was not the first time in my life! But I know what I did and what I didn’t, and I still look myself in the mirror in the morning. And I very well know my value if compared to them. So, no need to worry, Mr. Stark!”</p><p>She was smiling at him, and for a moment she noticed he was fixing her and losing himself into her smile, like she was bringing joy and hope in his life.</p><p>“I… I like you, Miss Potts!” he then said. “Really… I’m glad to have you by my side! I- I don’t know what I’ve done without you… still don’t know what I will do if you ever go away…”</p><p>“Well, no need of worry for that too: I’m not going anywhere!” she reassured him. “But now, Tony, could you just let me do my job?”</p><p>He nodded and raised to go away.</p><p>“One more thing,” he added, “Peps, are you… are you upset that I like… well yes that I like both?”</p><p>She blinked perplexed. “Mr. Stark are you asking me if I wonder that you’re bisexual?”</p><p>But he was deadly serious, so she answered: “No, Tony, I honestly don’t mind if you’re bisexual. Your sexual tastes will never be a problem… as long as you’re fine!”</p><p>He smiled at her and whispered: “Thanks…”</p><p>He took his notepad and worked beside her the whole time, just mumbling from time to time.</p><p>He also offered to made lunch for them both.</p><p>From the noises she heard from the kitchen, he had crashed something for sure, and Pepper wondered whether she should go take a look, but he just shouted “I’m fine! Lunch on the way!”. And then he arrived all covered in flour, and very proud of… well, whatever it was it had eggs in it and looked like an awful omelet with something like cheese and grilled sausages on a bed of lettuce.</p><p>“I know! I know!” he defended himself. “But if we survive till tomorrow, I’d take you out and we eat Italian in a fancy restaurant I know!”</p><p>She took a taste and exclaimed: “It’s good!”</p><p>“I’m a man full of surprises!” he praised himself, smiling. “Uhm, we need something to drink! What about a milkshake? I have seen frozen strawberries...”</p><p>“That’d be great, Tony, but I’m allergic to strawberries” she smiled.</p><p>“Oh? Why haven’t you told me?”</p><p>“I did, Mr. Scatterbrain! That night you fixed my computer: you offered me a strawberry lollipop…” she remembered him.</p><p>“Seriously? Well, nice to know. I’ll pour you some other coffee… We both need it!”</p><p>She didn’t know why but the sudden mention of that night had awaken something inside her. Something deeply related to a lollipop and to where she had found it.</p><p>She considered to ask him, but he seemed now so happy and smiling after an awful morning, so she didn’t want to ruin that rare moment of happiness.</p><p>However she couldn’t not notice how his humor got worse through the afternoon: he had received some texts on his private phone, and since then he had stopped working, stopped babbling aloud about his work, and when she glanced over, he was just fixing a point in front of him.</p><p>It was around 8 PM, and the night has already fallen over the town.</p><p>Pepper felt a bit hungry, so she offered: “What about Chinese for dinner?”</p><p>He didn’t answer, knees curled up to his chest once again. He was moving rhythmically and he was mumbling like an inner song. That was the same she has heard Jarvis singing to him.</p><p>“Tony?” she called him, worried, and she touched him on his shoulder.</p><p>He frowned and looked at her like he was someone else. He was terrified.</p><p>“Hey, hey!” she exclaimed coming closed to him. Instinctively, she passed an harm on his shoulder in a way she has seen making only by Rhodes and, weirdly though, Mr. Stane.</p><p>“Are you all right, Tony?” she called him.</p><p>He appeared to have lost himself in another dimension: it was not the first time that happened, and it usually happened at evening, at least twice a week, but that time it was extremely worrying.</p><p>He nodded silently.</p><p>“May I ask you a favor, Pepper?” he whispered.</p><p>“Of course, Tony! Whatever you need!”</p><p>“I- I need you to go home… now! Just… just stay home till tomorrow okay? Don’t come here tonight even if I’d call you on your phone, okay? Only if I use the intercom I’ve installed… can you do that, all of that for me?”</p><p>“What’s happening?” she asked herself astonished. She felt a sensation like of imminent disaster: her survival instincts were already in red alert.</p><p>“Promise me, Peps!” he insisted.</p><p>“I- I promise…” she muttered. “But Tony…”</p><p>In the moment the private elevator dinged and Obadiah Stane emerged with his huge smile and the smell of cigar that always surrounded him. He was carrying a large family size pizza.</p><p>“Ah, miss Potts!” he greeted. “Would you make us company?”</p><p>“Miss Potts was just going home!” Tony stated before she could answer.</p><p>He stood quickly and moved away from her, grab a slice of pizza the man was offering and turned to her. He has put himself between them.</p><p>“I need that suits ready for tomorrow! Left that notes at the main entrance before you go home, Miss Potts. And tomorrow check the laundry, and do the other errands I’ve asked you to, before coming here. But now it’s late and your taxi should be waiting you downstairs as always!”</p><p>She was extremely confused: laundry? Errands? Taxi? But if she was living literally under that flat. She would arrive home in five seconds, just pressing a button. What he was talking about…</p><p>And then he saw his big brown eyes opened in dread, like he was begging her to do as he said. And behind those eyes there was the smirk of Obadiah Stane, and it was like seeing a shark approaching the surfer.</p><p>She didn’t get what was going on, but her instincts were telling her to run away, to escape that grin as soon as possible. Like that day in Stane’s office.</p><p>“Good night, miss Potts!” Tony was saying nodding firmly at her.</p><p>She stood and smiled at both the men. “Good night, Mr. Stark, see you in the morning! Mr. Stane!”</p><p>“Good night, wonderful miss Potts!” the man greeted her, his eyes moving through her in a very uncomfortable way for her.</p><p>It lasted only a couple seconds before she disappeared into the elevator.</p><p>The last words she heard were from Mr. Stark and sounded like a menace: “Leave her alone, Obie! I’ll be good…”</p><p>She was in panic, there was no better word to describe it.</p><p>But she managed to perform as requested nevertheless: she went down till the main entrance, and only at that point she went back home, using the normal front door, which bypassed the private elevator. Nobody saw her, or so she hoped, and she closed the door behind her with a sense of relief.</p><p>Still she couldn’t stop painting hard until she was in her room and has closed also that door with the key and put a chair to block furtherly the door (a trick she has learnt quickly to use those months by social services).</p><p>She then sat in the bed, her head spinning while an idea was forming in her mind: a terrible revelation that was just like hiding on the back of her mind for all that time. Since when she had found a pink lollipop under Mr. Stane’s desk the day after having been offered a similar lollipop from Mr. Stark, the same day Mr. Stark has ended up in hospital with major injuries. The same day Mr. Stane’s former assistant has urged her not to call the police if her Boss acted “weird”… without knowing her Boss wouldn’t be Mr. Stane but Mr. Stark.</p><p>“Damn lollipop!” she swore taking her head with her hands. “I knew there was something going on… Mr. Stark’s humor always changed from days to nights, and he usually searches for companies at night… and the way he was so upset from that roses, and the obsession for my security! Wait!” she paused looking around and trying to focus on what had just happened.</p><p>Mr. Stark knew she lived right behind him, and yet she told her to take a taxi and made some errands on her way home… Mr. Stark could easily forget many things, though, but that didn’t seem the case. But everyone could have discovered that she lived here… couldn’t it?</p><p>She needed to check!</p><p>She opened her laptop and got direct access to the Stark Industries personnel record and went to her own: like she has started to suspect her official address was still the small flat one hour from there. She did another check of her belongings and nowhere she could find this apartment in his list; she checked then on the apartment and she discovered he was titled to a Hera Carbonell. She didn’t know about the name, but she was sure Mr. Stark’s mother’s surname before marriage was Carbonell.</p><p>And why has Tony Stark given her an apartment under a pseudonym? Why he was so obsessed by her own security? Why there were days in which he couldn’t move from bed, after evenings he has passed in a sort of catatonic state?</p><p>All the pieces were coming together in her mind, and they all turned around that lollipop found in a very unusual place more than a year ago.</p><p>The reality of things kicked her in her stomach: Obadiah Stane was a manipulative monster and he was using every means to maintain control over Tony Stark, and, with him gone, the company!</p><p>Still, there were things she couldn’t get… things that seemed too absurd to be believed in!</p><p>So she stayed up all night, because sleeping was really the last thing she was considering at the moment.</p><p>She checked Tony’s medical records, but also those times during those months when he couldn’t just stand up from his bed. She matched those occasions with other calendars, like board meetings, Stane’s duties out town, and other similar facts, and the correspondence was almost completed. So now she had a picture of things that were going on, and she started to understand why Tony accepted to create and invent things in reality he didn’t want to instead of focusing on what he wanted to do. Those moments painfully corresponded with two days out in bed now that she noticed.</p><p>Like that time, a few months ago, when he has insisted on that arc reactor for ecological source of power: she had supported his idea by doing research on sustainability, and she had argumented during the board meeting that it could have been a good marketing strategy for the company in a moment of decrease of investments by the Army.</p><p>And now she remembered the look on Stane’s face, a mix of proud and jealousy while he glanced from his golden boy to his red-haired assistant.</p><p>And when the board had approved the project for the new Stark laboratory in California, she now remembered how Tony had winked at her, smiled with happiness, but how his smile had disappeared when Stane had grabbed his shoulder and said: “Well done, my boy! Tonight we should celebrate!”.</p><p>And Tony had disappeared for the whole following day, closed in his room while he was supposed to be working on the arc reactor he so hardly fought for. And Jarvis had desperately urged her to go check on him and took him a soup.</p><p>Pepper cursed herself for having been so blind at the signs: they were all in front of her, by starting with that damn lollipop!</p><p>And Tonys, all of them, were desperately trying to tell the world about it, begging that someone will finally notice what was going on and save them.</p><p>Save him! That would have been Pepper’s new objective.</p><p>“Manage Mr. Stark’s wellbeing!” these have been Stane’s own words when he enrolled her.</p><p>Probably he hasn’t thought how those same words were going to turn against him! He had probably thought to be able to manipulate her like he did with his previous assistant.</p><p>He, like many others, had underestimated her: big mistake!</p><p>Her next steps were on two paths: first, she needed to know more about how domestic abuses and how to deal with abused people, in order not to accidentally damage Tony more than he already was!</p><p>After a brief Google search she discovered that a big deal involved a psychological addiction of the victim to his/her oppressor, and also some form of blackmail: it could involve children’s protection, financial issues or other forms of psychological abused based on fear of losing something dear to the victim. In those cases, the victims didn’t subtract themselves to their tormenter for shame and also in the belief of protecting something or someone greatly valuable for them, more valuable than their life or their well-being.</p><p>She considered that that was exactly the case between Mr. Stane and Mr. Stark: Tony could have run away this afternoon, when he probably got the message that Stane was going to pass the night with him… instead he has remained in the living room, scared but still.</p><p>“Conclusion, miss Potts?” she asked herself. “Obadiah Stane is playing psychologically with him since he was a boy. He took him in his custody when he was 16… and Tony Stark reappeared when he was 19! Now he must have something to force him down every time. He is blackmailing him with something valuable, something Tony couldn’t live without… and what that could have been?”</p><p>She stopped to try to figure out what could this ‘leverage point’ be in Tony’s case: it couldn’t be money, and he didn’t have family of friends he could have menaced him with, unless…</p><p>“Leave her alone, Obie! I’ll be good…” she had heard Tony saying to Stane while she was getting away.</p><p>That was like being hit by a thunder! Astonishing and painful at the same time!</p><p>That explained many things, like while Mr. Stark has given her this apartment but titled it under a pseudonym, and why he had told her to go home, like he was speaking to the old apartment she still allegedly owned, or why he was so concerned for her privacy and safety… she was one of Tony’s leverage point!</p><p>That was unbelievable to thing that a genius billionaire playboy could care so much about his personal assistant to throw himself in hell on different nights… but yet the facts spoke by themselves. However…</p><p>“No”, Pepper thought, “I am not Tony’s leverage point, or at least not the main one. Stane has started to abuse him long before we met, for sure shortly after the Tony’s parents were gone, and maybe also before. So he must have something very powerful to threaten Tony with”.</p><p>And the only thing Mr. Stark loved more than everything was just one: his company!</p><p>During those months, Pepper has seen how intensively he worked, how he was involved in the progresses of his company… he has referred to it as his home when they’ve met that night. That was more than a simple economic interest: she knew that without his company, Tony Stark could have survived more than fine for the rest of his life! But his company was not simply a way to make money: it was a way for creating and experimenting, and that was really what Tony’s life was about!</p><p>Without his company, he couldn’t have tried the same things he was now working on: the robots, the living AI, the arc reactors, and many other tech devices which have ended up firstly to the military as weapons but that they have also turned into medical equipment, prosthesis and eco-sustainable machines.</p><p>“To sum up, Stane has an ace in the hole to throw Mr. Stark out of his own company in no time… and that’s the thing is menacing him with, to force him to obey his will every time Tony is… just Tony! Or only once he wanted to… sick monster!”</p><p>Now that she thought of it, Stane has told her the same thing herself when he gave her this job.</p><p>He was playing with her since then, maybe since the board meetings when he thanked her openly… that manipulative bastard!</p><p>Maybe he wanted to offer her a place as his personal assistant, but Tony has arrived first and picked her up… an so he had turned mad at him that night.</p><p>She sighed: “He couldn’t be at the same level of the genius, so he tried to lure him down… when he wanted to experiment with new stuff, like that arc reactor, or when he acted out of plans, he reminded him of his power! That monster, fucking son of a wrong-born fart!”</p><p>She was furious, swearing out loud in her own comfort apartment, by frowning at the thought of what was happening in that exact moment just above her head.</p><p>She considered different options: she could have taken the small purse gun she owned since when she has moved alone at age 16 and she has been harassed many times on the way home after work; or, more easily and noiseless, she could have used a kitchen knife, one of the sharpest one. It would be easy, just using the private elevator to arrive unnoticed and, most of all, unexpected, and took Stane’s life with one single blow while he was giving her his back, because he was…</p><p>The image of what Obadiah Stane could be doing to Tony made her sick, and she felt the impulse to vomit. And she did, more than once, taking out probably also the breakfast of the day before.</p><p>“That lurid worm! Monster!” she murmured between one retching and the other. Another reason to stab him and make him gone for good!</p><p>But when she was brushing her teeth, a different thought made up her mind.</p><p>“Think about it, Potts” she reflected out loud. “Whatever Stane has in his hands, it’s not something that he carried around, but must be something that could survived him. Actually, that could be something that start whether he died violently! That could be the reason why Tony never fought him back!”</p><p>“And, besides,” she reflected, “how many chances do I think I have against a man like Stane? He’s aged, but he has shown you that he’s still strong… and now I get why he was showing off! Maybe I could surprise him on his back, but if he turns and fights, I’m no match for him!”</p><p>She was still pondering about it, when her alarm rang: it was 7 AM, and she hasn’t slept at all. Great!</p><p>“What now, Potts?” she thought.</p><p>Rationally speaking, she had to wait till 9 before coming upstairs, when she was supposed to start her working day by Mr. Stark’s side.</p><p>How many possibilities were that Stane was still there? A good 50%, so she would be better to reinforce the coverage Mr. Stark has built for her last night.</p><p>And that meant sneak out un-noticed and pick up his suits from the laundry, and then come back in from the front door at 8:45, with the suits in one hand and maybe a coffee-to-go on the other.</p><p>The main difficulty was the exit, because she couldn’t get directly to the garage and take the risk of finding Stane there about to leave. The idea of being alone with him in a desert place made her sick. She made up a plan while she was putting make up on to cover the dark circles under her eyes.</p><p>She dressed like an ordinary girl, with a sweater and jeans, and she covered her hair with a hat. She took her bag with her pad and the gun, and went out of her apartment from the front door, looking at her feet to avoid the security cameras. She took the common elevator till the second floor, then she took the secondary stairs and entered to the downstairs cafeteria. It was around 7:45.</p><p>She took a small breakfast while reading the newspaper just to maintain her cover, and then took her exit from the front door. There were already many people around of all typologies and working classes. She quickly mixed with one main wave of people and took the metro for two stops, then she exited, got back on the surface and picked up a random taxi till the laundry near their palace she used for Mr. Stark’s suit.</p><p>It was a modest family laundry managed by a Pakistan family she had befriended through time. She preferred them for their discretion and speed, and also because they avoided questions or spoke with the press: it was a matter of mutual loyalty. She hid her hat on purpose before entering the laundry and chatting a bit with the owner. She had one of her working dress, a white one, by them as well and she asked him if they had a restroom where she could get change: she had awaken quite late, she excused herself, but she needed to be acceptable for Mr. Stark’s meetings. They gladly allowed her that small favor, so she got changed, fixed her hair differently, took the suits and then proceeded back to Mr. Stark’s house, by entering the front building and passing the badge on the elevator at ground floor.</p><p>If someone was checking, she had entered the building from the outside at 8:45. Everything as planned.</p><p>As soon as she entered the apartment, her blood froze in her veins.</p><p>There was a mess everywhere, like there has been a huge fight! Worst of all, Mr. Stark was nowhere to be found!</p><p>And there was blood stains on the surfaces of the living room, the kitchen and on the floor. Even the golden-and-red cup with the writing “Genius” she had bought him and he was so proudly using was broken in half. The scent of cigar permeated the air, and she found a remaining one on the floor.</p><p>Her first instinct was to call the 911, but then she stopped and thought: was that what Obadiah Stane want her to do just to have a scandal and throw Tony outside his company?</p><p>She put the phone down. First of all, she needed to find Tony!</p><p>She looked everywhere, including his room and the toilet but he seemed to have vanished.</p><p>Maybe that was what Stane had planned: that she would have come there in the morning, found a mess and called the cops or… Stane himself! The taught nauseated her!</p><p>“Damn fucking bastard!” she swore aloud, collapsing on one side of the bed, desperately trying to think.</p><p>“Pepper?” she heard a voice murmuring.</p><p>It came from the big wardrobe in the bedroom. She now noticed that the door was only partially closed, and that there were blood stains moving till there, like someone has dragged himself inside.</p><p>She immediately stood up, and opened the door: and there she found Tony Stark, all naked and curled on himself, different cuts and bruises everywhere but his face, his now beardless face, blood clotted on his shoulders and back, red eyes opened in despair.</p><p>She felt her head spinning and she collapsed on her knees in front of him, tears in her eyes for what that monster has done to him, to his genial billionaire playboy philanthropist. And that for sure wasn’t the first time…</p><p>“Oh Tony!” she called out, stretching her arms, and trying to caress him softly. It was a very intimate contact, one they’d never had, and he was so hurt that for a moment she feared he was going to retract himself. Instead, he moved towards her, and practically collapsed with his head on her shoulder, staining her white dress with his blood. But she couldn’t care less.</p><p>“I fell down while working…” he whispered, like in trance.</p><p>Now she understood it must have been something it has been forced to say to everyone else, over and over again since it has become an automatic answer to justify bruises and cut to people surrounding him. Pepper wondered how many people at the top rank of Stark Industries knew what Stane was doing to their official boss since when he was an underage boy, and just shut up for their own convenience. She hated them even more, but now she had other priorities.</p><p>“Hush, hush! It’s okay, Tony! I’m here… you’re gonna be fine now!” she told him.</p><p>“He’ll be back… he’ll be back…” he started to cry over her shoulder, big sobs that shook him to the bones, making him moan more for the bruises on his body.</p><p>She made a silent vow to made Stane pay for this as well, for having made her Tony cry!</p><p>“Let’s get out of here!” she told him, once he has calmed down a bit. “Could you stand?”</p><p>She had to help him get on his feet, then she guided him to the toilet.</p><p>She helped him inside the tub and opened the water, checking for a hot temperature.</p><p>“Wait a sec, please!” she told him, while she looked for a bathrobe and a sponge. When she went back to Tony, he was trying to clean himself, but he was trembling so hard only to partially succeed in the job.</p><p>“Here!” she said, gently washing his back, carefully though because he was all covered in bruises that made him moan at every touch. She resolved to use her bare hands to avoid him more pain.</p><p>“Are you... are you hurt somewhere else, Tony?” she asked, trying to look confident while in reality she was panicking inside.</p><p>He nodded but avoided to look her up in the eye, ashamed. “I- I’ve already cleaned myself down there…” he muttered. “I’ve been worse…”</p><p>In normal times he would have joked about her impudence or prudery, but they were way pass normality there.</p><p>“Very well, then!” she said with a forced smile to reassure him. “Here! I’ll help you with bathrobe and we get out of there, okay?”</p><p>He nodded silently, but he couldn’t do much on his own, quietly following her lead outside the tub, then the toilet, until they were back to the bedroom and she made him sit on the bed. He frowned a bit, but she kept talking to him in a very reassuring and kind tone.</p><p>She took the emergency kit under the sink and started to medicate the worst cuts: they were not profound ones, like they’ve been provoked by a small object. She couldn’t be certain, since her parents have never raised a finger over her, but they looked like the bruises of a belt mixed with the straight lines of a cane.</p><p>And in all this Tony Stark was just sitting here, moving his head a bit rhythmically like he was following an inner music: he was clearly in deep shock.</p><p>Pepper considered what to do next, but he was just staring at the void or at her, waiting for her to decide on his destiny. She quickly made her mind: he couldn’t stay there!</p><p>He needed a fresh and safe place to recover, and then they would have made a plan.</p><p>So, she took a shirt, Tony’s favorite hoodie, a pair of gym pants, underwear and socks from his wardrobe and she had to help him wearing them, since from every movement he moaned in pain. She couldn’t find his shoes, but she judged them unnecessary for the small journey they had to do.</p><p>“Come, Tony!” she said by helping him raising.</p><p>He was hurt but at least he seemed to manage to walk alone, even if she had to sustain him.</p><p>“W-where…?” he managed to ask, once they were in the living room.</p><p>He was crying again, silently, and she didn’t know if it was only for the pain, or also for the mess he saw around: that was his safe shelter from the outside world, the only place where he could be himself, the child self, and now it has been corrupted.</p><p>“I’ll take you to my apartment downstairs” she kindly told him.</p><p>He tried a small protest, but she was determined. “Tony, listen to me: you need to rest, and you can’t do it there! So now we go downstairs, I’ll help you find some sleep and then I’ll take care of everything here, I’ll clean and throw away broken things until it looked just an ordinary mess and I could call the cleaning service to fix the rest. Okay?”</p><p>After a moment, he nodded. “The mug…” he murmured. “Please don’t throw the mug away … the gold-and-red one… I-I like it!”</p><p>It took her a moment to realize that in all of that, the billionaire Tony Stark was wondering of a creepy ugly mug bought at a 99-cents store just for fun.</p><p>“Tony…” she protested.</p><p>“You bought that for me…” he said. “It-it was the first present you gave me…”</p><p>The implications of that were even more painful that his actual condition. She took the pieces of the mug, while she was reassuring him, and then bringing him downstairs through the private elevator. She thought of how many presents have Tony Stark received in his life: real presents, sent from people who actually cared for him or wanted him to laugh when he unpacked them. Then she remembered that Tony has only one friend, that colonel Rhodes who was almost always out of country for duty.</p><p>And that was the first rule of every predatory manipulative bastard’s strategy: isolate the victim, so that he or she could be totally subjected to you and your will.</p><p>She felt a homicide instinct rushing again through her chest, while she made him to her bed, gave him some drops of a tranquillizer she randomly took for sleeping even if he protested a bit. Then she watched as his breath progressively calmed down, until he reached some sort of peaceful sleep.</p><p>She fixed the covert around him and left a note on the night table: she reported date, time and place of where he was now, and where he could find her… just in case he woke up before she went back. He didn’t want him to panic by not knowing where he was, especially in those conditions!</p><p>She changed dress, because the one she was wearing was wet and partially covered with Tony’s blood. She took a side note to burn it at first occasion.</p><p>She choose jeans and a blue blouse, and then she made herself another strong coffee, this time by using her moka pot because she really needed energy.</p><p>She checked her phone while drinking, and she rose an eyebrow when she found that an unknown number was repeatedly calling her. How was that possible?</p><p>She frowned at the possibility that Stane was using a non-trackable phone and those could be menaces or worse… so she quickly turned on the voice recorder app on her phone before putting the caller on voice and answering suspiciously.</p><p>“Miss Potts, I’m glad you’ve answered!” it wasn’t Stane's, but Jarvis's voice. “I’m sorry for having to use this trick and I was afraid you didn’t answer given the circumstances…”</p><p>“Oh” she simply replied. She needed to sit.</p><p>“Miss Potts, I’ll make it easy” the living AI was saying, with a sense of hurry. “I guess we can skip the explanation of what happened last night and who was the responsible: I’m quite sure that you’ve already figured it out, due to your last night researches…”</p><p>“Oh!” she replied. She tended to forget that Tony had installed Jarvis on all her devices as well.</p><p>“Just for safety, so that we can still communicate between us… even if either I or you lose our phones!” he had said. He had been damn right, but still that lack of privacy made her uncomfortable.</p><p>“I’m sorry if this upsets you” the AI was continuing, like he was reading her mind. “I should probably apologize for the intrusion but I needed to know if you knew… because my top priority has been and will always be Mr. Stark’s safety! And as you’ve come to understand, he’s not safe here anymore!”</p><p>“I agree” she replied.</p><p>But how could she bring Tony Stark away safely?</p><p>She was still but his assistant and she had to deal with the vice-CEO of one of the major company in the US, not forgetting that he had contacts in the Government, the Army, the police, and almost certainly in not so legal environments.</p><p>“I am concerned for Tony’s wellbeing too, Jarvis. But what could I do for him without making things worse?”</p><p>“Miss Potts, I think I’ve something to explain to you. Something really important and related to the facts you have just assisted. Although…” the AI started.</p><p>“Although?” she pressed him or it (she was still unsure on how to consider Jarvis).</p><p>“Although in the end it will be your choice if you stay or run away!” Jarvis stated. “Like I did when I was a human being… but to make this decision, you must know the details… every one of them. So, Miss Potts, I need to ask you to come upstairs: there’s something I want to show you.”</p><p>All this mystery from an AI made her suspicious, but she followed his suggestions, also because she had to come upstairs and clean up a bit.</p><p>“I’m here, Jarvis!” she said when she reached the living room.</p><p>“I know you’re here, miss Potts” he replied from her phone. “I could suggest you use the audio of the house, but you have to turn it on. Mr. Stark put me on silence yesterday afternoon after he had received that message from Mr. Stane, but he didn’t turn me down. I don’t know if he did it on purpose as part of the plan.. or if it was simply not thinking about it! Nevertheless I was still there the whole time. Powerless, though!”</p><p>She felt her heart bumping into her chest, but she raised his volume, while she asked: “Are you telling me that you’ve witnessed it all?”</p><p>“Not simply witnessing” he replied, his voice now coming from all around her. It seemed ashamed. “As soon as I’ve realized what was going on, I’ve started a recording… it was the only thing I could do! Maybe we could use that…”</p><p>“Jarvis, this could be a double-edged sword! Where is this recording?”</p><p>“It’s still here! I was planning to send it to Mr. Stark’s phone and then destroy it from my archives, but Mr. Stane took Mr. Stark’s phone to check or clear it. So I thought it was not safe to put this message on any Stark related network Mr. Stane could have access to! I- I’m still not connected to the main network, because Mr. Stark wanted me to be a bit better before that!”</p><p>“That… that was an excellent thought from your part, Jarvis!” she was really impressed.</p><p>Two weeks ago the AI had difficulties in managing the house lights and now he had developed a complex thought on his own! The scientific implications of that were beyond her concern now, though, so she simply said: “Jarvis, I need you to show me what you’ve recorded, and then we will find a safe place to store it!”</p><p>The AI seemed to hesitate. “Miss Potts I have to warn you… it could be… disturbing…”</p><p>She sighed: “I am perfectly aware due to Mr. Stark’s conditions! Just put it on TV, and give me the possibility to run through the recording at high speed, could you do that?”</p><p>“Of course, miss Potts” Jarvis replied. “I suggest you take a sit, and on the armchair. Avoid the couch, please. The reason will become soon evident to you…”</p><p>Jarvis’s recordings must have started a couple of seconds after she left, because she firstly saw both men still in the living room, with Obadiah standing tall and menacing over Tony, who was moaning on the floor holding his chest, still fully dressed.</p><p>She saw the older man grabbing at Tony’s hair, lifting him up and calmly telling him: “Now, boy, you tell me where that red-headed bitch lives and we might go the kind way tonight…”</p><p>“I- I don’t know!” she heard Tony replying, his eyes firmly closed, perfectly aware that Stane wouldn’t have believed it for a second.</p><p>And indeed he didn’t, starting to punch him systematically and brutally, like he was an expert in this way of questioning. And Pepper didn’t doubt he was. Still Tony didn’t tell him nothing, apart for moaning some very pitiful “Obie, please…” that made her skin crawl.</p><p>She imposed herself not to turn down the volume, but she had to press the speed button, when he saw Stane forcing Tony down on the couch and face-fucking him hard. She felt like she had to throw away again.</p><p>And it was just the beginning.</p><p>The rest of the record were three hours of horror, in which the older man forced his young stepson into taking some drugs, probably to avoid him to fight too hard, and then stripped him naked with violence, before starting to beat him hard with his belt, forcing him to stay up into different positions on the couch to intensify his pain.</p><p>Then Jarvis probably lost them from a couple of seconds, while Stane dragged the young man to the kitchen, and forced him down there before sexually abusing him firstly with his hands and then with different objects he found around. Even at high speed and without the audio, Pepper could hear Tony’s screaming while he was trying to free himself, making many things crushing on the floor, and the other man turning even more violent. He had almost stroke him... and that explained the signs on Tony's throat!</p><p>Then the horror continued in the bedroom (Jarvis lost again a couple of seconds, but the dynamics were pretty clear), where Stane had tied Tony up in a very uncomfortable position on the bed. The he had shaved him completely, before fucking him violently. He had untied him only after he had returned from the toilet, where he had probably made a shower since he was wearing a towel around his hips. Then he had sunk by Tony’s side, satisfied, and forced him into a hard kiss in his mouth before grabbing him over his chest… and he just slept like that, with the sore Tony in his arms like a trophy.</p><p>Pepper swallowed heavily and tried to maintain her rationality: the clock on Jarvis’s recordings said it was around 3 AM.</p><p>Then nothing happened till 7:30 when Obadiah woke up and violently woke Tony as well (giving that he has managed to sleep at all) by raising him again by his hair.</p><p>She put the normal speed just to listen when he said: “Rise and shine, naughty boy! Time for your morning beauty spank and ride!”. He had thrown him on his lap and spanked him with his hands, before fucking him hard again.</p><p>Pepper had to put the high speed once more, until she saw Stane throwing Tony on the floor like garbage, and kicked him in his belly with his bare foot. Stane didn’t even bother to clean himself again, but just passed a hand on his face, collected his clothes and got dressed.</p><p>Then he sat on the side of the bed, and looked carefully on Tony’s face while lighting one of his famous cigars.</p><p>“I really hate when you force me to be so violent with you!” he said. “Next time you’ll be more cooperative or I’ll reserve the same treatment to your red-haired friend. Am I clear?!”</p><p>“Yes, sir…” Tony’s voice was but a whisper, while he was crawling in pain.</p><p>“And what will you say to your assistant when she’ll ask what happened?”</p><p>Tony was crying but managed to answer: “I fell off while working…”</p><p>Stane nodded. “Good boy!” he said, standing again. But this time he didn’t kicked him, but patted him on his head, gently and reassuring. “Now take a good shower and clean up this mess before I’ll come back! If I found you still there when I’ll arrive, you will mark last night just like a prequel of what awaits you! Do you hear me?!”</p><p>“Yes… yes, sir…”</p><p>Obadiah stood satisfied and went away whistling.</p><p>Pepper saw him collecting his jacket from the messy living room, and taking the private elevator at 8:45.</p><p>She swallowed heavily: at that same time she was entering the main building and by absolute chance she hadn’t crossed his path on the elevator or in the hall.</p><p>She had been lucky…</p><p>Jarvis has kept recording also after Stane has gone away, but the camera has remained fixed on Tony who seemed unable to move, grabbing at his shoulders and making the cuts on it pouring out blood once again. The AI was trying to ascertain his conditions, to contact his young master, but it couldn’t do nothing.</p><p>She heard Jarvis’s voice calling Tony’s name, and it seemed to her that the AI was like crying in pain.</p><p>After a moment she saw Tony raising his head in alarm, and then quickly gasping till the wardrobe where she had found him hiding a few minutes later when she too had collapsed on that same bed and Tony had called her from his hiding.</p><p>Now it was clear: he must have thought to have fallen asleep, and that Obadiah was already back, so he was hiding in fear.</p><p>“Wait!” she thought, standing up in pain. “He said he would come back…”</p><p>Tony had tried to tell her, but she had believed he was just in shock.</p><p>He was warning her, and now she was in big trouble!</p><p>Then she called out: “Jarvis! I need you to secure this recording now! Download it on my laptop and then disconnected it from the main server, at cost of losing every documents I have in it! Do it now, and then erase every traces of this from your database. And act like you were not there when he…”</p><p>And then with horror she heard the “ding” of the private elevator and Obadiah Stane emerged whistling, a tray probably of pastries in his hands.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you @cobien for the comments! It means a lot!<br/>Apologies for the language mistakes I always found everytime I re-read my chapters... I'm in desperate need of a beta-reader :D</p><p>What's going to happen to our amazing Miss Potts face-to-face with the King of Chess?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The red woman, the butler, the monster</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Pepper has to face Obadiah Stane alone... well, not properly alone, because Jarvis is there as well! And then the red-haired woman has to take a decision: take the money and run away, or stay by Mr. Stark's side even is she now knows the risks?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had to rewrite this chapter many times to match it with the other stories in the series (especially Jarvis and Rhodey's own story!)<br/>Hope you'd like it despite its flaws (aka my inhability to see my own grammatical mistakes most of the time!)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He is a damn good actor!” she thought while she witnessed at Stane, dropping the tray on the floor with an astonished expression while he was looking around.</p><p>He has immediately noticed her, but he acted like he had acknowledged her presence right at the time he said: “Oh, good Lord, miss Potts! What happened here? Is Tony all right?”</p><p>She knew that he has noticed her murderous look on her face, just a quick glance because she could manage to hide it under a wonder expression.</p><p>“I don’t know, Mr. Stane!” she exclaimed, faking concern. “I’ve just arrived here and found this mess… I’ve called Mr. Stark but he appeared not to be here! I was about to call the 911…”</p><p>He frowned. “Why the 911?”</p><p>“Well, Mr. Stane, it’s evident that this was a crime scene. Maybe a robbery or… or worse! You see?” she proceeded by indicating him broken things and blood stains. “Maybe Mr. Stark has surprised some thieves and fought… or maybe this was a kidnapping!”</p><p>She hasn’t ever mentioned, but she was one of the best at the acting club. Her concern was very realistic, while she was looking around in despair. And she witnessed that he was almost believing her.</p><p>Almost though, because he then asked: “Where’s your purse, miss Potts?”</p><p>“My… my purse?” she asked. She cursed herself: she had it with her the first time she arrived here, but now? Did she bring it downstairs? Was it still there, where Tony was hiding and resting? She couldn’t tell that as well as she could admit that it was suspicious that she hasn’t any purse or laptop bag with her in normally working hours…</p><p>“Your purse, miss Potts” he repeated, moving closer to her, like the shark who has identified his prey. “You always have a fancy and expensive one with you…”</p><p>She had accidentally let him forcing her against a wall, where she stood still, trying her best to maintain her façade while her mind was rushing in terror. He was not too closed to her, but at the right distance to make her feel trapped, and to close her way out.</p><p>“I- I don't…” she babbled.</p><p>He moved one step closer, and her brain declared the panic!</p><p>She felt stupid for having thought to be ready to deal with this monster the night before: she was just a stupid little girl compared to this evil manipulative mastermind, and she stood no chance at all against him!</p><p>“Miss Potts!” Jarvis called out loud. “Your purse is currently near the table in front of the elevator! You dropped it there when you arrived!”</p><p>“What is this?!” Stane shouted, in alarm. His face was completely white like he had heard the voice of a ghost.</p><p>“My name is Jarvis, Mr. Stane. Nice to meet you... again! Even if in such pitiful circumstances!”</p><p>“J-Jarvis…” he stuttered. “That’s… that’s impossible! You are death…”</p><p>Pepper noted that there was more in his reaction. Like he wanted to say “I’ve killed you…” instead of “You are death…”.</p><p>“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Stane, but I’m very much alive! Well as alive as an Artificial Intelligence could be!” She couldn’t be sure, but Jarvis sounded acid, then he followed: “I’m Mr. Stark’s private living AI and I run this house. You know? Lights, phone calls, the healing system, ordinary stuff like… a butler!”</p><p>The look in Stane’s eyes was terrifying, because it was a mix of dread and fury. Pepper reminded that she was the only other living thing in the room, and she was already quite terrified.</p><p>But then Stane managed to regain control over himself. He looked at her in her eyes while asking out loud: “Then, Jarvis, you could maybe tell us what happened here. And maybe where is Mr. Stark? Apparently miss Potts hasn’t found him anywhere…”</p><p>She swallowed heavily for a couple of times.</p><p>“I’m afraid, Mr. Stane,” she heard Jarvis’s reply, “but I’m programmed to turn myself off exactly at 9 PM and turn on at 9 AM every day. I have no way to recover what happened in the meanwhile. This was Mr. Stark’s explicit desire!”</p><p>She tried to stay calm, but she knew her eyes had betrayed her once again, because she should have widen them a bit in astonishment: Jarvis was an AI and he has just lied in an incredible way in front of a direct question from a human being! What else could he do now? How did Tony program him and what for?</p><p>There was a long moment of tensed silence.</p><p>“Jarvis, when did Miss Potts arrive?” Stane called out loud, always so closed to Pepper that she could smell the scent of his cigar on her face.</p><p>“About twenty minutes ago” Jarvis calmly replied.</p><p>Obadiah smiled at her one of his shark smile. “A bit later than usual, right, miss Potts?”</p><p>She swallowed and imposed herself to use her damn brain, or what it has been left to survive.</p><p>“The laundry” she replied, with a creaky voice. “I- I had to recover Mr. Stark’s suits from the laundry…”</p><p>“What?” Stane appeared taken aback, but he followed her pointing and noticed that two male suits still in their laundry plastic bag have been thrown to the table in front of the elevator. Down there, a female purse lied on the floor: it appeared to have been thrown there, instead of carefully laid down.</p><p>“I see…” he said, and he moved back to inspect those things.</p><p>Pepper started to breathe again, but she had to force herself into moving from that corner to make herself closer to the elevator, still at a careful distance from the man.</p><p>“You haven’t answer me, Jarvis” Stane said again. She noted that he spitted the name with disgust. “Where is Tony?”</p><p>“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to your question, Mr. Stane!” Jarvis lied again. “When I turn on this morning, I’ve noticed the mess but there were no traces of Mr. Stark anyway in the house.”</p><p>“Could you locate him if he is still in the building?”</p><p>“I’m again very sorry, Mr. Stane, but my area of operation is limited to this house. May I suggest to call Mr. Stark on his private phone to check if he is all right?”</p><p>“Could you locate it wherever it rings?”</p><p>“Probably, Mr. Stane…”</p><p>Pepper was standing absolutely astonished: Jarvis knew that Stane had Tony’s phone, and he was luring him into a trap! He was menacing him openly, and his tone conveyed it fully.</p><p>If he was a living person, she was pretty sure he would have just killed the man in front of her with no hesitation, maybe by later lamenting for the blood stains on the carpet.</p><p>And then she remembered: Jarvis was Tony’s butler and he has worked for him since after Tony has escaped from Obadiah’s custody! He must have been the only one trying to protect him! And Tony had programmed the AI on the memories of the Jarvis he loved… this Jarvis thus was really alive, not simply an AI!</p><p>Now she saw Stane hesitating, before addressing her another smirk and saying: “Well, it’s worth a try! In the meanwhile, we could look around a bit to figure out how a burglar could have had access here. Don’t you think, Miss Potts?”</p><p>And then he took out his phone and he moved to the bedroom.</p><p>“Shit!” she thought.</p><p>He would have found the bathrobe, and maybe also something that signaled her presence there too. She needed a coverage and quick.</p><p>“Think, Potts, think!”</p><p>Then she had an idea. She took out her phone and whispered: “Jarvis? Call me from some private number, quick!”</p><p>She turner the tune on, so when it rang she knew Stane heard that too.</p><p>“Hello?” she answered. And then very aloud: “Mr. Stark!!! Where are you?! I’m at your apartment with Mr. Stane and there’s a mess… are you all right?! Why are you calling me from an unknown number?!”</p><p>She saw Stane rushing back his eyes widen with incredulity.</p><p>“Put him on voice!” he ordered. And when she hesitated: “Now, girl!”</p><p>And before she could react he heard Jarvis on the phone speaking with Tony’s voice: “Don’t worry, miss Potts!”</p><p>She couldn’t refrain a flash of victory in her eyes, when he put the voice on, and Tony’s voice resonated in the astonished face of Obadiah Stane.</p><p>“Hello, Obie! Don’t worry I’m fine… I had an idea and went out early to test it!”</p><p>There were some weird pauses in between the words, but for everything else it was perfectly realistic! Pepper was again quite impressed: Jarvis must have used Tony’s recorded messages and faked a new one on the moment.</p><p>“Miss Potts, I need your assistance at the central lab. And called the cleaning ladies for the apartment!”</p><p>“Yes, Mr. Stark! I’m on my way…” she said.</p><p>“Wait boy!” Stane interrupted and she paused again, tense. “Do you mind tell us what happened here? We were very worried for you!”</p><p>There was a moment silence, then Tony’s fake voice told: “Nothing to be too concerned about, Obie! I fell off while working, you know?”</p><p>That was really a gratuitous provocation! Pepper wondered whether Jarvis really knew what he was doing!</p><p>“Potts, I need you to bring me my phone… I must have dropped it somewhere!” the fake Tony was saying.</p><p>“Sure, Mr. Stark! See you later!” she replied.</p><p>The conversation closed and she stared a moment into Obadiah’s eyes, before forcing herself into a big smile.</p><p>“It seems there was nothing to worry, Mr. Stane!” she said. “You were right in stopping me from calling the 911… maybe I am still a bit too emotional!”</p><p>He studied her with greedy eyes.</p><p>She considered her chances to effectively reach the elevator and be safe before he could grab her back: they were slightly less than 10%, and she has been generous with herself.</p><p>Lucky for her, Stane seemed to have had enough of that little game they were playing, and he hold her a phone.</p><p>“I found it in his room, Miss Potts!” he said with a smile. “I guess you’d be better reminding your dear Mr. Stark to take his belongings more closed to himself!”</p><p>The menace was not so implicit, but he was making a few steps away.</p><p>“And don’t forget your purse!” he told her.</p><p>She had to pass really closed to him to collect it, and she was sure he was checking her butt and making some evaluations over it. She managed not to frown too overtly, and to take her way back on the elevator.</p><p>“Goodbye Mr. Stane!” she greeted.</p><p>Only when the sliding doors closed in front of her, she managed to release the breath she was holding ever since.</p><p>Despite her panic, she managed to pressed the button to the ground floor.</p><p>She had still Tony’s phone in her hands, and by instinct she threw it in a plant near the exit. She went out from the main door, checking out a few minutes after 11. She practically collapsed in a taxi after having told the driver a casual destination not too close from there.</p><p>Then her phone rang again with an unknown number.</p><p>“Miss Potts, it’s Jarvis again!”</p><p>“Hello, Mr. Jarvis, it’s nice to hear from you! I’m in taxi right now, but what can I do for you?”</p><p>“Oh! Your acting is pretty good, Miss Potts!” the AI seemed pleased.</p><p>“Thank you, Jarvis, I’ll try my best!”</p><p>“I just want to let you know that Mr. Stane is erasing every traces of his presence in the house. He has inspected the toilet, and he long stopped in front of the wardrobe, but I don’t think he has found something related to your presence here.”</p><p>“That’s a good news, Mr. Jarvis!”</p><p>“I can tell you when he went away, but I won’t be sure if he would still be in the building…”</p><p>“Well, you may call Mr. Stark on his phone for that, Mr. Jarvis. It should be easy to access the Wi-Fi system from the main hall, don’t you agree?” she suggested.</p><p>The AI kept silent, probably checking on the position of Mr. Stark’s phone. She could sense his surprise.</p><p>“Miss Potts, once again I have to remark that you are absolutely brilliant! The best person I could imagine by Mr. Stark’s side!” he seemed moved and so proud that she made her smile.</p><p>“Thank you, Mr. Jarvis! It means a lot from you!”</p><p>“I will call you when he left the building then!”</p><p>“Sure, Mr. Jarvis. I’ll wait for your call. Have a nice day!”</p><p>Jarvis called her about one hour later, but she stayed out till 1 PM just to finish her job without arousing suspicions.</p><p>She spent the following hours around the town, changing one taxi after the other while effectively making some errands, which included buy some instant food for her fridge. Since she usually ate outside and/or with Mr. Stark, she didn’t have lots of food in her house.</p><p>Then she called the cleaning service for Mr. Stark’s apartment and managed to do some working calls she was supposed to do that morning to some journals: she had to bite her tongue more than once while addressing the journalist’s insinuations on Mr. Stark’s sexual life, but she did it.</p><p>She was really wasted and in need of rest when, around 1 PM, she took some cheeseburgers and fries (Tony’s favorites), and went back home, this time passing through the secondary entry from the cafeteria, and then taking the stairs until the fourth floor before using the common elevator till her floor. She took out her ponytail, hoping that would be enough for the cameras but she was just too tired to worry anymore.</p><p>Once she has closed the door behind her back, she practically collapsed on the couch. She had closed her eyes, when a noise behind her made her jump and turn around.</p><p>“Oh! You’re awake!” she said, surprised.</p><p>In her living room stood the genius Tony Stark, wasted and very miserably looking, but apparently on his feet even if with an extreme effort.</p><p>“I- I read your note…” he murmured with a hoarse voice. “T-thank you…”</p><p>“How do you feel?” she asked him.</p><p>He only looked up at her, the answering printed in his big brown eyes.</p><p>“I- I’m sorry I’ve vomited in the toilet… I-I’ve tried to clean it…”</p><p>“It’s okay, Tony. Come here!” she said, by waving him.</p><p>He was a bit unsure on where to sit, but she patted next to her on the couch, and he accepted, by moaning loud when he tried to curl up his knees like he always did when he sat.</p><p>They stayed silent for a while.</p><p>“Pepper,” he started, “I …”</p><p>“Tony, whatever you’re about to say, I hope it’s nothing in the line of “I fell off while working”! Just don’t! I’m tired of this bullshit, okay?”</p><p>He looked at her in astonishment and his lips curled into a bit smirk when he replied: “I just wanted to say that I’m really grateful for what you did this morning for me. It must have been quite shameful to have to deal with me in those conditions, so I’d totally get if you want to run away... I’ll provide you a golden parachute to satisfy your needs...”</p><p>She stared at him without understanding. “Are you firing me, Mr. Stark?”</p><p>“What? No, no! I’m just… well, I assume you won’t to have nothing else to do with me and my mess anymore, so I’ll make things easy to you!”</p><p>“Tony…” she whispered, shaking her head.</p><p>She couldn’t believe to feel more pain for him than the one she experienced that morning, but now she was feeling really sorry for him and his golden life, that hided horrors and loneliness she hasn’t never felt in her whole life. And that was enough saying.</p><p>“Look at me, Tony. I’m not happy for what have happened, but, please, don’t ever blame yourself or be ashamed for that because it wasn’t your fault! Do you hear me?”</p><p>He frowned. “How… what do you know?”</p><p>“Jarvis was on the whole time” she explained. “He- he made a recording…”</p><p>“A what?!” he was horrified. “Did you watch it?”</p><p>She blushed overtly but nodded. “I had to put the max speed, though. That was… just horrible!”</p><p>He was looking at a point on the floor, and she knew him long enough to see the connections he was making inside his genial mind.</p><p>“Where’s the recording?” he asked.</p><p>“It’s safe on a server. At least that was I’ve ordered Jarvis before Mr. Stane arrived…”</p><p>“DID YOU MEET HIM ALONE?” he was shouting, in panic.</p><p>“Tony! Please, calm down! Nothing happened… I’ll tell you everything, but please calm down!”</p><p>He took him a while, but then he nodded and said: “I’m listening.”</p><p>She took a deep breath, and explained to him everything, without sparing the details. She tried to stick to the facts, without letting her emotions in between, but it was openly clear that she had been very afraid.</p><p>He listened silently for the whole time, randomly gasping or making a surprise note when he heard of Jarvis’s interventions.</p><p>“He’s learning… and he’s starting to think and act on his own… good!” he smirked. But then his eyes turned sad when he said: “Okay, Potts, thank you. I- I wish to thank you for everything… Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll provide you a new identity, a huge amount of money and a nice house wherever you like. Europe would be nice…”</p><p>She blinked at him. “What the hell are you saying right now?” she was too tired and wasted to mind her manners.</p><p>But he was stubborn. “Potts, listen to me: Obadiah Stane is a dangerous man, in line of the very dangerous… do you think I want to have anything to spare in this?”</p><p>“No, but…”</p><p>“Then it’s decided, Potts! If even me, with my name and my money couldn’t stop him from hurting me, at least I can take him away from the people I care the most. Why do you think Rhodey got that role so far away from here? Unfortunately I can’t do the same for you… And I’ve put you in a big danger, bigger than you can imagine… I’ve already lost Jarvis for my arrogance, and I don’t want to lose you as well!”</p><p>“And do you think that I will simply run away and carry on a new fancy life while I know the hell you’d go through every day and night?” she didn’t realize she was shouting.</p><p>He was looking at her without understanding, but it was clear that it was thinking that that was the only possible solution. So she moved towards him and dared to take his hands.</p><p>She looked him right in his eyes while she said: “Now you listen to me very well, Anthony Edward Stark! I didn’t ask for this, you’re right, but in no universe I will turn my back to you in this moment! I know Stane is a dangerous man, and I won’t lie to you: this morning in your apartment I was scared as hell… but I won’t be able to live with myself, to look at myself in the eyes if I just leave you now to allegedly save my life! I won’t because I don’t want to leave you: you tried your best to make people away from you, but I don’t buy it and I will stay! Do you hear me?”</p><p>He was really impressed, but he tried to reply: “But…”</p><p>“But nothing!” she interrupted him. “Listen, I’ve realized a few things in those months, even before yesterday and today’s event. The first thing is that Stane is a manipulative monster! And those monsters want their preys isolated. I don’t know what he had on you, and only you could decide if you want to let me know that. But I think that it must be related to your company… that’s your weak point. And then your friend Rhodes, and, since yesterday, maybe also me. Everyone close to you becomes a leverage on you, but it’s not by isolating yourself that you’d solve the problem. So, please, don’t be stubborn on this point: we are two lonely people, and we need to stick together if we want to outmatched him… and we’re not completely alone: Jarvis is with us as well!”</p><p>That took a small smile from his face. His eyes were filled with tears, like he wasn’t believing or maybe accepting it.</p><p>“I don’t know if I can accept your help…”</p><p>“I’m sorry, but you don’t have really a saying in this” she smiled at him. “I’m a red-head woman, no chance you will win in a game of stubbornness!”</p><p>He was clearly crying, overwhelmed by emotions. “May… may you… please…” he murmured, moving closer to her.</p><p>But she didn’t let him finish, and hug him firmly. She felt him abandoning completely on her, his head resting and sobbing on her shoulder. She hold him tight, caressing that fragile young man who had everything in his life, but in reality had nothing.</p><p>And he was so desperately in need of love to maybe exchange abuse for love for a long time. But not anymore: she knew he was rebelling or trying to, but he couldn’t do that alone, and nobody inside or outside the company was going to believe him.</p><p>On that he was right: Obadiah Stane was a very dangerous man!</p><p>They have chosen a very difficult enemy... well, not exactly. He had had no choice but to die or fight for his own freedom. On the other hand, she has chosen to stay the moment he has met Tony Stark in that hospital room. And she has chosen to stay now that she knew everything. At least, that monster couldn’t rip her from her right to choose which sides to be on.</p><p>She felt strangely confident they could manage it.</p><p>“Jarvis likes you…” she heard him murmuring. “I like you too, Peps…”</p><p>“I like you too, Tony!”</p><p>And without thinking, she pressed a soft kiss on his head.</p><p>___________________________________________________________</p><p>They spent the following three days closed in Pepper’s house to give Tony time to recover and making plans for the future.</p><p>Pepper was a bit concerned by the amount of drugs Tony told her Stane usually gave him regularly during those “training sessions”, as he called them. Besides, Tony seemed to have developed an allergy to some of them, by witnessing at the red spots on his neck and chest.</p><p>He minimized by stating that it has been worse, like the first time they met. She wasn’t very amused.</p><p>By now, they believed Stane must have figured out that Tony never went to the Stark Industries that morning, but they were confident he couldn’t find them there. To be more sure, Tony installed Jarvis on Pepper’s house as well, also to make them company, and was very proud to discover that the AI has managed to access all the building’s server, to check all the security camera, and to erase all the frames containing Pepper coming in and out her apartment.</p><p>They also pulled Jarvis on constant red alert for everyone accessing their floor or Tony’s house, but apart from the cleaning service nobody went in (Tony overtly lamented the loss of his mug, and wanted to fix the broken one with real gold, to Pepper’s major concern).</p><p>She then wanted to come back upstairs to collect some of his clothes or personal belongings, but he was inflexible: it was too risky and could expose their shelter.</p><p>He was persuaded at ordering take-away, but only because Pepper could mask herself while collecting the delivery and that amused him.</p><p>The lack of cloth change didn’t seem an issue for him: he overtly made jokes on wearing her underpants and she replied that they were not at that point of their relationship. That closed his mouth with a blush… the first time she has seen him blushing!</p><p>She then ordered something casual and neutral online and have them delivered as well.</p><p>The major problem was that they had only one pad, a phone and a computer with a very dangerous file on it. Pepper has resigned to work on her phone, while Tony used the pad: creating things helped him focusing and recovering.</p><p>About the video they had quite an argument, because Tony wanted to delete it and never to refer to it in his life, but Pepper finally persuaded him to maintain it as a possible extreme move: there were no proofs of Obadiah’s latest abuses with the exception of that movie, and that could be their only insurance if he did something like calling Tony mentally instable or with the persecution mania. That made his way through him.</p><p>“He… he’s menacing me with that… mental instability, I mean” he confessed on the second evening, while they were eating Chinese. She believed it was too spicy for him right now, but he had insisted.</p><p>She immediately stopped eating and listened, while he went on explaining: “I was 16 when my parents died. Obadiah was… well he’s still my godfather, so he took me under his custody. He told everyone that I was wasted by my loss, that I have mental issues… even before my parents died he said we should try his “therapy” to fix me… I- I have never had a good character, and I’ve trouble focusing on a single task or listening while people talk for long… I’ve always been this way! It’s just that everyone is so slow if compared to me… and there are so many things to do and I don’t have time to do…”</p><p>“I think it’s called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” she said. “It’s a condition and could be severe, but it’s not a mental illness in the way he meant it, at least not in your case!”</p><p>His smile was sad. “Yeah, nowadays many kids are diagnosed with that, but back then I was just a problematic kid… a rich genius, though, so that fixed everything, or so they said. As long as I managed to create stuff and made myself useful, it was fine. But as soon as I made a mess, which usually happened when you work with explosives, or when I couldn’t refrain myself from saying what I was thinking of others’ stupid projects, he… he turned mad at me! He… well you have seen yourself! I just tell you that that wasn’t the worst time… not even closed to the worst time… sorry!”</p><p>He then rushed to the toilet and he heard him throwing away. She was horrified but she managed to bring him a glass of water, when she thought it was over. She sat on the floor next to him, while he was trembling under the pain and the memories.</p><p>“So” she then said to take him through it, “if I’m correct he used those episodes to mark his point that you’re mentally instable, so that he could keep you under custody?”</p><p>“Yes and no, Peps. When I was around 19, he made a mess, on the line of completely blow up our contract with the Army by selling them some defective ballistic missiles because he had rushed things… and they couldn’t read my or my father’s projects! I can only guess he had also some debts with some guys in the mob, or so I heard… he loves talking during our “sessions” and I’m forced to listen every time! By the way, everybody on the board wanted his head, so he accepted a deal with me: he would give back my legal independency and my company, if I maintained him as vice-CEO and didn’t kick him off my company. I had my father’s surname, and many generals and senior officers still owned the old Stark something for his services in WWII and the cold war… and then I pulled the rabbit from the hat with some new missiles and devices that made them unroll the red carpet in front of me! Everyone celebrated the return of the heir, or the young genius as they called me. And Obie seemed so proud!”</p><p>He had a knot on his throat. She could see how he deeply wanted to please his father figure, the deepen of his betrayal and abuse sitting in front of her in her own toilet.</p><p>He continued: “But Obadiah has always been jealous, first of my father and then of me… and he turned violent again. He took his time, by kicking off the board everyone against him until only the ones loyal to him have remained. I- I have proofs that he killed Jarvis as well… he was the only one standing between him and me… we knew that it was going to happen, even if I’ve tried to avoid it… At least I’ve found his Queen… or better King…”</p><p>Sometimes Pepper didn’t get what he was talking about, especially when he referred to chess. She thought better not to interrupt him: he was finally taking that out… literally and metaphorically!</p><p>“I was wasted by Jarvis's loss, because he has been a father to me! Jeez, for years I’ve believed to have two dads and a mother!” Tony went on. “When Jarvis died, I crawled. So Obadiah came back… that was partially the plan, but I lost myself completely for a long time. And he menaced me again with those old psychological reports… he said to have deleted them, they were part of the deal, but he had a copy and he was ready to use it if I didn’t obey him! He had put them somewhere safe, and if anything violent happened to him or if I menace him he will make them public… and that would be the end of Stark Industries, and the end of me as well… I… I live for this company, Peps, that’s part of me… So, you see? He has complete power over me. He has imprisoned me in his spider’s web slowly, by taking his time … until he had me every time he wanted and where he wanted… over a table or on my knees… sorry!”</p><p>He threw up again, and she could just pat him on his shoulder until he was over.</p><p>They moved back to the living room and he collapsed on the couch, tired.</p><p>“You were right about those Chinese food…” he admitted.</p><p>“As always!” she mocked him. Without realizing she was hugging him again, and he was just resting in her arms, at peace. “Should I make you a sandwich? Maybe we still have something to eat…”</p><p>“No, thanks, I feel my stomach will just refuse everything solid… don’t worry, it’s not the first time I don’t eat for days. He used to make me starving for weeks... and before that, I’ve always had problems to manage feeding myself as part of my life... Rhodey used to make sure I ate at least once a day when we were at college…”</p><p>“It should have been weird for him,” she stated, “you were about… fourteen right?”</p><p>“Say twelve when I started… and everyone told me I looked younger!” he smirked a bit. “A genius, remember? And no, with Rhodey everything has always been fine. He wasn’t from a rich family, you know, and not of the right color code… so we got along just fine. He took care of me even in the worst moments like I was his little brother…Little T, he called me! I was very short…”</p><p>He didn’t add anything, and she didn’t ask.</p><p>Besides, she had read the rumors and gossips of Stark’s period at college, with the hazing of the elder students bypassed by the enfant prodige. And that was also the period of Tony’s first hospitalization for drug abuse, and shortly later for blows and other injuries. And as for the Board at Stark Industries, also back then everybody knew, everybody had noticed his black eye but no one moved a finger against Stark senior or his menacing vice Obadiah Stane. But now that had to end!</p><p>“Listen, Tony, I’ve made a plan I wish to discuss with you!” she said, and he nodded firmly. She always listened to her without moving, which was quite surprisingly with his AHDH syndrome. “These days we managed to make them believe you have decided to take an holiday on the coast, with fake reservations and so on. But we can’t continue for long, and you need to get back to work… for yourself more than for your company!”</p><p>“I agree… But the moment I set foot again at the company, Obie is going to… well, let’s say I’m not particularly enthusiast at the perspective!”</p><p>“You’re right, and that’s why I think you should move away, go to the opposite side of the country… but not as an escape, but as a surviving strategy! Keep yourself as far away from Stane as possible, and reduce your encounters to a minimum!”</p><p>“He could still use his ace, those damn psychological reports, to lure me there again…” he sounded skeptic.</p><p>“It’s a possibility, but if we manage to maintain his and your schedule really fit with social appearances, his occasions will be drastically reduced… what do you think?”</p><p>He didn’t seem very optimistic, but he nodded. “Where, Peps?”</p><p>She took a mental note that he’d do whatever she said, how desperately in need of trusting and love he was. Another reason to keep that monster away from him.</p><p>“Malibu” she said. “Stark Industries are opening a new lab over there, remember?”</p><p>“Of course I remember! It’s where they wanted to install my arc reactor!” he shouted. “Obie said that it was better to put that thing there so I wouldn’t blow up the whole West Coast!”</p><p>He chuckled a bit, by massaging his shoulders. Pepper knew that the reactor had been a delicate matter… one of that had caused many “therapy sessions”, as Tony called them. She called them “sexual violence” but maybe he wasn’t ready to call them like that. Not aloud, at least.</p><p>“Malibu eh?” he said. “It sounds nice for castling…”</p><p>“What do you with ‘castling’?” she decided to ask. “Like in a chess game?”</p><p>He looked at her for a while, but then shook his head.</p><p>“It’s… It’s a game of chess, Pepper! I’ve made a plan some years ago… but then I had to stop it. I guess I was just considering to surrender… until I’ve found my white Queen…”</p><p>“Your Queen?” she asked, perplexed. She wasn’t sure but she had the feeling he was meaning her.</p><p>He smiled at her but he didn’t answer properly. Instead he said: “If I promise that I would explain everything in due time, will you believe me? You can then be mad at me and run away or hit me as much as you want to… I- I don’t want to use you but… but the less you know the better! I’ve already made that mistake with Jarvis: he knew too much, and that put him in danger! Plus, you’re human and you may act out of plan if I’m going to explain to you every detail: one can’t tell the future or it won’t happen they say… it’s a probability…”</p><p>She was really confused, and not particularly fond at the perspective of not knowing what was going on. Worst, at the perspective of being used in a dangerous game.</p><p>But she trusted him. Most of all, like him, she was too tired to start an argument, so she nodded.</p><p>“Okay, fine! We’ll talk about this later… Now look at this fancy house I found!” she followed to change topic. She showed him many pictures of an amazing house by the ocean. “It has a huge garage, with much space… we could put your lab there! We could send them the projects and the prototypes. You could focus only on creating, while I take care of everything rest… including the Board if necessary!”</p><p>He was thinking. “I need him to allow me to go there in the first place without looking for me” he said out loud. “I had to give him something valuable, something so impressive they’d be happy… and something which I could assemble only in Malibu… that could work as a bait…”</p><p>He has started to mumble his song again: he has focused on “David’s boy” and kept repeating some biblical references including a Joshua and a town called Jericho. The Potts have never been quite religious so she didn’t got what he was talking about… but it was unusual to him to mumble like this when he was focused or upset.</p><p>“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Tony?” she interrupted his mumbling. “I mean, I could talk to him and simply refer him your plans and reasons, without you having to deal with him directly!”</p><p>“You’ll NEVER spend time alone with him again, Peps, am I clear?” he frowned.</p><p>“I’m glad for you concern, but Stane wants you, not me: I’m just your weak spot, but he couldn’t hurt me directly. Besides I’ll take my precautions too!”</p><p>“The video? Do you want to use it?” He was sincerely shocked.</p><p>“No, Tony, keep calm! The video is dangerous for you as well… but a few frames, when your face is not visible and with a different date will tell another story. Like that Stane was using your apartment to lure there young boys and then abusing them. It didn’t need to be true, they need only to believe it…”</p><p>He considered her with intensity and then smiled. “Miss Potts, you’re really an extraordinary woman! One day when this was over, I will seriously consider marrying you!”</p><p>“Mr. Stark!!” she replied, more red than her hair. “This is quite inappropriate…”</p><p>“Why? We’re already dividing the bed… okay okay, fine, not funny! Got it! Don’t throw me the pillow, Peps!” he was laughing, and she was laughing too, and they seemed like two normal grown-ups acting like children in their mother’s living room.</p><p>Those days have strengthened their relationship which now was of real friendship (or maybe something more?), despite the fact that Pepper was still Tony’s assistant. Tony has made a bad joke and proposed to fire her so there wouldn’t be mixed interests, and Pepper has remarked he wouldn’t survive one day without her.</p><p>And she had discovered that she liked “friendly Tony”, caring and also a bit weird, and touchy: she had already noticed, but he was a very tactile person, as if he needed to maintain contact with people and objects around him, to ground himself to avoid losing in the continuum of time-and-space. Maybe that was why he hated nights, and, she found out, also darkness: he used to leave some lights on to manage to sleep and to wake up not in a pure panic. On that point, they’d reached a truce during those days: the light in the bathroom would remain on, but they switched off the ones in the bedroom.</p><p>Indeed, the first night was a mess, because Tony was hurt but he pretended to sleep on the couch, and Pepper was firm in him taking the bed to recover better and sooner. But then he has asked her to sleep there too, because… well, to put it simply he was scared to stay alone at nights, scared he would have come despite all the security systems, scared because he didn’t know exactly what to do to protect him and her, and also his company. She was still insecure, because it wasn’t really appropriate, but he swore to be good and to really need her, so she gave in for the first night (besides, she considered that in his actual conditions he wasn’t really a menace).</p><p>They didn’t slept much, because he woke up four or five times, with different hallucinations as a long-term side effect of the drugs. It took her a while to calm him down each time, because every time he didn’t know where he was or with whom, but then they managed to catch some sleep. Weirdly, he remembered her and he was not scared of her.</p><p>The second night went better, and she found herself spooning against him in the morning. She was a bit ashamed but he said nothing or made a joke not to cause her discomfort. She appreciated that greatly.</p><p>And now they were approaching their third night, when Jarvis called them out in a worried tone.</p><p>“I beg your pardon Mr. Stark, Miss Potts!” he said. “I’ve just been notified by my systems that Mr. Stane has entered the building. He’s going to your penthouse… there are other men with him. They were dividing on different floors… including this one!”</p><p>They stood in dread panic, by looking at the ceiling and imagining him calmly passing above their heads. </p><p>“Jarvis could you show us the house on the TV?” Pepper asked. “Better to know what he’s doing…”</p><p>For the moment Stane was just drinking a whisky he has poured himself, and smoking his famous cigar, widely spread on the couch in the living room. Two man completely in black like special forces were rushing around, inspecting every angle, looking in every shelter or drawer.</p><p>“There’s no one living here, sir!” they told him after a while.</p><p>“Oh Tony Tony… where are you hiding this time?” he asked aloud while standing. Then he turned exactly to fix in one of the cameras and said: “I know you’re hiding here, boy! You and your red-haired girl… she has been very smart to fool me! I like her! You’ve always picked all the lucky cards… Now come out and nobody will get hurt… well, not exactly, but you already know that, don’t you?”</p><p>He waved away to his imaginary public. “You have till tomorrow afternoon, boy! If you won’t be at the meeting, I guess I have to tell them about your issues… your choice!”</p><p>They relaxed a bit only when Jarvis confirmed everyone went away. But then the AI told that one of the men was turning back and leaving a yellow rose right in front of different doors, including Pepper’s one. She frowned, in panic: he knew they were there… how?</p><p>“It was the most logic conclusion” Tony replied to her concern. “He must have make your alleged apartment under surveillance, and when he has discovered that it was empty he must have concluded that I’ve bought you a new one. And the most logical decision is to keep you close, so he checked every apartment recently purchased in this building. And this one is under my mother’s surname…”</p><p>“Oh!” she exclaimed.</p><p>They were expecting that, but now it appeared so close…</p><p>“Show time tomorrow!” Tony only said.</p><p>“We will be ready to leave after the meeting!” she confirmed.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>When I think on Tony &amp; Pepper I just think that they are so desperately cute and tender together!<br/>I added Stane's astonishment when he heard Jarvis's voice by thinking on Scar when he mistook Simba for Mufasa at the end of "The Lion King".</p><p>Next chapter: the road to Malibu!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Everywhere you'll go...</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Pepper and Tony try to escape from Stane's web. Destination: Malibu.<br/>And they may also end up confessing each other's love.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The title has been inspired by the song "I will find you" by Clannad, the mythical song in the movie "The last of the Mohicans" (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mITjPj7JMH0)</p><p>You can interpret it either in the romantic way, or in the controlling one... this is the story of lovers trying to escape after all!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Pepper had never realized how Tony Stark was a liar until she has discovered what was really going between the CEO of the company with his name and his vice and god-father Obadiah Stane. And yet, she decided to stay by his side and to fight back.</p><p>She wasn’t sure why he was referring at her like “the white Queen”, but she had decided to accept to delay further explanations to a better moment.</p><p>For now they need to play well their cards and leave town safely.</p><p>It was a bit early in the morning and they were preparing for leaving town to reach the new Stark Industries lab in Malibu. Here Mr. Stark would have supervised the installation of the arc reactor he has designed, and assemble a new fancy “toy” (as he called it) that have profited many moneys… and that would have turned everyone, and especially Stane, very happy.</p><p>That was what Tony had to tell the Board that afternoon, and yet they would have closed themselves in a new fancy house in California and in the new lab.</p><p>Pepper had already bought the house, sent the interior design, and prepared a plan for enrolling bodyguards to regular patrol the house. She knew that a golden cage is always a cage, but for now it would have worked in taking Tony away from Stane until they’ve managed to find those damn documents he was using against him.</p><p>At least, she hoped that it would be enough.</p><p>They left her apartment where they were hiding for good. Tony was still not in a perfect shape, and he was on his nerves, at least by judging on the tremors of his hands and on his hard breathing. But they weren’t allow more time, so they had to move.</p><p>They went directly upstairs, into Tony’s apartment, without troubling to hide: they would have never come back. They’ve prepared just a small bag for both of them, little enough to be carried around without arousing suspicions. They would bought everything when they arrived, since at least money was not an issue.</p><p>Despite Tony’s confidence over that point, Pepper and Jarvis have run separated checks and they’ve both come to the conclusion that whatever Stane had in his hands, Tony’s private bank accounts wouldn’t have been touched by this. But then Tony considered there was a small probability for this, and, despite her protests, co-assigned one of his bank account to her as well, and made her his direct heir of some properties and royalties in case something has happened to him.</p><p>“Do you realize that this could be seen as the reason of a crime and I’ll end up in prison or on the chair if something ever happens to you?” she shouted at him.</p><p>“Don’t worry, Potts!” he just grinned. “I’m the golden goose, it’s nobody’s interest to kill me… not until I keep providing scrappy projects they couldn’t read without me! Or inventing those amazing weapons like the Jericho! They are my last idea... You’ll see…”</p><p>“I honestly still do not like the idea!” she was really upset when he was so proud of his army of mass destruction. Not because she was such a moralist, but because she knew that he would have preferred something else. But he was just too good at that part of the job, and that was the only one Stane was interested into.</p><p>Tony got changed and hide under the mask provided by his fancy suit. He was acting cool, but the fact he was really nervous emerged when he tried repeatedly to fix his sparkling tie, unsuccessfully.</p><p>“Damn it!” he swore.</p><p>“Allow me” she replied, coming close and fixing it. It was a very intimate gesture and they looked each other in the eyes for a long time.</p><p>“Peps” he then murmured by holding her hands, “I need you to promise me one thing. Whatever happened this afternoon, if I told you to go… you’ll go! Promise me, Peps!”</p><p>She knew what he was asking her to do: the eventuality that Mr. Stane wanted a private “talk” Tony after the Board meeting were quite high, and they both knew how that talk would have ended.</p><p>“I can’t abandon you…” she stated, stubborn.</p><p>“I’m not asking you to!” he rephrased. “But I need to know that you’d be save while I’ll do what it has to be done! I can’t lose you too… So I need you to trust me: this time I’ll be both the puppet and the puppet master!”</p><p>She saw his determination, and she knew that he needed her trust and her help. “I trust you, Tony!” she said then. “And I promise I’ll do whatever you’ll tell me to do… and I promise not to judge or pity you for whatever you’ll have to say or do! I promise!”</p><p>For a moment she thought he was about to cry or kiss her with the joy, but then he just bit his lips and nodded.</p><p>“Be sure not to lose your pad, Peps” he told her when they were on the elevator. “And put up one of these earphones. I’ll take the other. When we arrived, I’ll find an excuse and I’ll connect the pade directly on a computer or any other fixed devices.”</p><p>“Jarvis?” she asked.</p><p>“Jarvis” he confirmed. “He’ll be with us through those earphones and he will come with us, but I want him also as our inside man… you just put him in charge and he’d manage to do everything else alone! He has learnt quick!”</p><p>“May I ask you a thing, Tony?”</p><p>“Sure!”</p><p>“Have you designed Jarvis just to keep you company… or also to find those documents Stane is hiding?”</p><p>She had just thought about it, but by his grin she guessed she was right.</p><p>“Once again you’re brilliant, Potts! Have you ever seen Star Wars? The first movie, “A new hope”, when the old Jedi got himself killed on purpose by Darth Vader, so he could come back more powerful than ever?”</p><p>Pepper frowned. “Are you saying that you let Jarvis killed on purpose?”</p><p>“That was but a possibility, miss Potts!” they heard Jarvis own voice. “Both my former self and Mr. Stark knew that it could have happened… and I’ve accepted to take the risk! Well, my former self to be precise! And that was why Mr. Stark has asked my former self to record every memories or sensations on voice. So, you see, I AM Jarvis, not just something that sounded like him!”</p><p>Pepper noticed the Tony was fixing a point on the floor, and he had tears in his eyes.</p><p>“It’s like he said” he added. “I’ve already projected a living AI for my MIT thesis. So I knew what to do, theoretically. And this started with a memory of my former butler… my friend Jarvis! Then I’ve imagined I could use his help to keep the old Obie back… like a deja-vu… but after he passed away for a long while I couldn’t do anything… it was just too much and I would quit! Then I’ve managed to recover and I’ve started to work on this AI… but this version of Jarvis needed time to learn and to evolve… But he will do it! Right, old pal?”</p><p>“Please, Mr. Stark, refrain from calling me “old pal”!” the AI replied to Pepper’s amusement.</p><p>“I have no doubts Jarvis will do that, Tony!” she said. “He loved you, and… it’s your design!”</p><p>He was pleased of the compliment, like he meant a lot to be praised by her.</p><p>They arrived at the garage where Tony kept one of his expensive car.</p><p>“I supposed I have to buy new ones in California” he stated, already giggling at the idea. “By the way, Potts, can you drive?”</p><p>“I- what? You aren’t asking me to drive all the way to California, are you?”</p><p>“Of course not, we’ll take my private jet! I was just curious if we can race in the Malibu circuit… it should be amazing!”</p><p>“I think I’ll pass this, Mr. Stark!”</p><p>“WHY?” he laughed, launching at a mad speed outside the garage and slaloming into the NY traffic. Pepper was already regretting not to have insisted for a taxi.</p><p>When they arrived at Star Industries she was pale as a paper.</p><p>“Don’t-do-that-again!” she punctuated, almost kissing the soil for being in one piece.</p><p>“Come on, Potts! It wasn’t that bad!” he was laughing and smiling, and he kept that attitude even when they were inside and were entering the board meeting.</p><p>As always, they were a bit late.</p><p>“Apologies, gentlemen, but miss Potts here couldn’t take my high speed driving!” he greeted everyone, by distributing smiles, and pats on the shoulders.</p><p>Everyone laughed at the sexist joke, and Pepper took a sit in a corner as always, a bit blushing: she knew he was acting but that was really upsetting.</p><p>“Tony, my boy! Have you had fun on your holiday?” Stane asked, hugging him firmly.</p><p>Tony reciprocated with enthusiasm. “Sure, Obie! And I did more than just fun… As I told you, I had an idea, and I needed time to develop it! As you probably noticed, I’ve not ended up on the front pages of scandal journals! And that’s because I was working! And I’ve got a special surprise for you, Obie!”</p><p>“Really, boy?” he sounded really surprised.</p><p>He hasn’t seen that coming, or so Pepper thought.</p><p>“Yeah! You’re going to like it… you all, I mean. It’s but a scratch project, and need a long prototyping phase to be fully operational but I’m sure the Army will open their wallets for this.”</p><p>“The Army?” the other counsellors were already well disposed, and Stane as well seemed genuinely interested.</p><p>“Potts, give me your pad, I’ve saved the project there… I hate papers!”</p><p>She did as required, purposely avoiding Stane’s interrogative look.</p><p>He took one of the laptop from another counselor by making a joke on not to delete the porn movies on it. They all laughed while he kept them entertained with some technical considerations, and proceeded to connect the pad to the server.</p><p>From her side, Pepper and other two men could look at the monitor, while Stane at the others could only stare at Tony: but in both cases it seemed he was typing string of commands for opening files. And in the meantime he was keeping talking and talking until she realized that even Stane had stopped paying attention to the computer and was focused on Tony’s explanations.</p><p>“And now, gentlemen, I’ll present to you: Jericho!” he exclaimed and in front of them, through the 3D cameras of the room, a big new missile opened.</p><p>She could feel the murmur of delusion running through the hall, and she was a bit surprised too: he has worked two days over that and it was just another missile?</p><p>The only one who didn’t seem disappointed was indeed Stane, who was studying his golden boy’s expression to try to understand his game.</p><p>“Tell us more about this, Tony, my boy!” he stated.</p><p>“Sure, sure, Obie! I get you might think it’s just another missile… so allow me to run to you a small preliminary test I’ll created. Consider it a simulation of Jericho’s effect on… let’s say a mountain chain in Aghanistan or whatever, just for fun. We know that terrorists are hiding there, and our troops are having troubles taking them out from their caves. So… what about we just rewrite geography?”</p><p>He was again touching his pad, and in front of them they saw a simulation that looked like an average mountain chain in a desert. Then he showed them the proportion of the missile, his launch from quite a distance from the target, and then the explosion… and the mountains were simply gone! Like they’ve never existed!</p><p>They all gasped with enthusiasm, and someone also clapped. And Stane were really fascinated.</p><p>“Have you an idea of how much should we ask for each of them?” he asked, his greedy mind already calculating the profits.</p><p>“Not at all, Obie! I can’t compute that part of the job, you know, but I’m sure you’d sell them greatly!” he answered, and Pepper couldn’t tell if he was just praising him or if he was being honest. It was true that Stane was a great resource for selling Tony’s deathly products.</p><p>“I’m sending you all the prospects with the costs of the materials, right now” Tony was continuing. “As you may see, you’d find some of them quite expensive, like the palladium, but they were indispensable to generate this power. And there also some technicalities with which we should use to persuade the generals. But believe me: one of my baby and you can say bye-bye to your problems!”</p><p>“Well done, boy!” Stane admitted, patting him on the shoulder.</p><p>Pepper couldn’t refrained to note with a certain amount of pain how Tony was pleased by his compliments. But when they exchanged a look, she also understood that he hasn’t lost his focus.</p><p>To confirm it, a soft voice murmured in her ear: “Hello, Miss Potts! It’s Jarvis. I’m online and operative. Mr. Stark wished me to tell you that he has already connected me and I’ll start run inside the system as a side code. Please, refrain to make any noises or expressions. My communications terminate here, until further necessity!”</p><p>“Impressive!” she thought. She smiled a bit to him, and he slightly nodded.</p><p>Then came the most difficult part.</p><p>“There is a small issue, though,” Tony was continuing, moving around the room, “but I may have already found a solution, if you all agree with me!”</p><p>“What is it, boy?” Obadiah asked, distracted by the sums he was seeing in front of him to notice that Tony Stark was asking for permission instead of just stating what he was going to do.</p><p>Pepper hold her breath when Tony said: “The prototype phase will be quite long, and possibly also dangerous. The sighting system now is everything but precise, and I need to perfect him on site. As you can imagine you need precision when launching one of this bon-bon! And it’s pretty obvious I can’t experimenting that here: a small miscalculations and we’d say goodbye to the old good Manhattan!”</p><p>They all gasped in silence, all but Stane who commented: “I don’t get the problem, Tony! We have another lab in the Californian desert. It would suit you just fine…”</p><p>It was only when he finally looked up at him that he realized the implications reflected in Tony’s eyes.</p><p>“Ah, Obie! I was sure you’d agree with me immediately!” he cheered him. “So, gentlemen, I hope you won’t mind but I’ll be out of town for a while. I’ll move to Malibu and I will attend to the whole creation of the Jericho system. In the meanwhile, to entertain myself, I will check on the installation of that arc reactor we agreed on last time. Does it sound fine, Obie?”</p><p>The other counsellors were already muttering in agreement, but Stane was just fixing Tony in the eyes: did he get to have been fooled?</p><p>“I think it’s an excellent idea, my boy!” he exclaimed, clapping both his hands. Everybody now clapped out loud.</p><p>“Thank you, gentlemen!” Tony said, with a small bow just to make them laugh. “So, there’s no reason to waste time. These bon-bons are not going to assemble themselves, so the candy man here must go. Potts, let’s go! We have a jet to take!”</p><p>“Now?” If Stane hasn’t got that he had been fooled, now it was clear.</p><p>“Why not?” Tony was asking. “To waste a day is to waste an opportunity, or so you taught me!”</p><p>“Slow down, Tony, damn you!” Pepper thought, by moving by his side.</p><p>Stane opened in a big smile.</p><p>“So you’re just run away without even saying goodbye to your old man?” he said. “I think that’s a news we might want to celebrate…”</p><p>“It’s not a news yet, it’s just a project” Tony reminded him. But he knew he had to concede something, so he added: “However, we may come upstairs and grab something to drink. Just you and me… wouldn’t you like it, Obie?”</p><p>He had his shark smile on when he answered: “Wonderful, my boy!”</p><p>He patted him on the shoulder, by guiding him to the elevator through the corridor full of secretaries and employees. The other members of the board were also getting out, chatting in excitement for the new deadly toy Stark has created. They were already calculating profits.</p><p>“Miss Potts, you should wait for me at the airport” Tony said towards her. “And dispose of my car at the entrance, would you?”</p><p>“Why shouldn’t we include miss Potts in our celebration as well?” Stane replied aloud, his hand practically clawing Tony’s shoulder. “I’m quite sure she made a huge contribution to your idea…”</p><p>“If by ‘contribution’ you mean that she managed not to call me every five minutes for a mail or something, your damn right, Obie!” he stated out loud, just to make the other old men laugh in sympathy against the only woman. “And really I don’t know if a woman could really appreciate our expensive tastes in alcohol…”</p><p>The other men laughed again at the sexist joke. But the situation was tense: Tony was making up pitiful excuses, but he couldn’t refuse too much, he couldn’t risk making a scene that could be referred to as just one of his tantrum. Not after all the work he has done with the Board and in the past days.</p><p>They haven’t thought at this possibility, and now they were stuck there.</p><p>“I’ll beg your pardon, gentlemen, but I’m in urgent need of Miss Potts!” they heard a voice behind their backs.</p><p>And there stood miss Karma Chander, Mr. Stane’s former assistant, her disdainful look on while she looked down at Pepper like she was making an effort not to spit on her.</p><p>“What is it, darling? Miss Potts was about to come take a drink with me and her boss in my office!” Mr. Stane replied.</p><p>“I’m sorry but it must wait, Mr. Stane!” miss Chander replied. Then he turned with an acid tone towards her. “Miss Potts, I’m afraid to say it in front of everyone, but you’ve made a mess with the last tickets you’ve provided to the administration on behalf of Mr. Stark. So now it’s very advisable to come with me to fix things before we risk a huge penalty!”</p><p>“For God’s sake, Potts, I was hoping you’d be the one organized!” Tony laughed. “Better if you fix this mess before I’ll end up like Al Capone! And manage to be on time or I’ll leave you there!”</p><p>He had taken the hint immediately, but he made her blushed even more than she already was. She wanted to disappear in the ground for shame and frustration when all the other men started to laugh, before going into two separate elevators.</p><p>Tony went up with Obadiah and his eyes were saying a clear “I’m sorry!”.</p><p>“You don’t need to thank me for having saved your nice ass, girl!” the older woman told her.</p><p>“T-thank you…” she muttered.</p><p>She seemed very pissed at her for something she didn’t know.</p><p>“You’re lucky” she said. “The Stark boy… he’s a good person! And I owe him that one… He has been kind to me, despite everything he has done to him…”</p><p>“Stane is a monster!” Pepper stated, forcing the older woman to look at her. “Listen, I know you knew what’s happening! Maybe together we could…”</p><p>“No! Stop right there!” Chander ordered her, acid. “I don’t know what you and your rich guy are thinking, but I won’t be involved in any of this. He… he has too much on me. And I owed him too much. I’ve saved you now because I got that Stark didn’t want this to happen… and I owe him this! But this was the only and last time! I don’t want to be involved in your failure, because you’ll never ever succeed: he has too many friends! You only managed to be killed or worse. Remember my words, Potts: grab the money and run away while you still can!”</p><p>And she marched away, disdainful as she has appeared.</p><p>And Pepper had no other options than to come downstairs and dispose of Tony’s car to be put back in his garage, before calling the private airport to dispose the departure of Mr. Stark’s private jet, destination Malibu.</p><p>She took a taxi with the intention to wait him there, also because she wanted to get as far as possible from Stane and associates. It has been really humiliating!</p><p>“Jarvis?” she called while she was sit on the jet.</p><p>“He has turned me off, Miss Potts” he replied, with a sad tone. “And there’s a further protection system around Mr. Stane’s office I can’t access yet. I’ll work on it, if you excuse me.”</p><p>Tony arrived at the airport three hours later with another taxi, and just jump on board ordering everyone not to be lazy and take him off that foggy place because he needed the sun and the beach.</p><p>There were few places on the jet, but he collapsed right in front of her, without managing to look her in the eye, ashamed.</p><p>He asked aloud her good-looking hostess for a fancy drink, and a bottle of scotch, plus a dry Martini with two olives for the lady (he already knew her tastes).</p><p>He winked maliciously at the hostess, but Pepper noted he was squeezing in his chair, uncomfortable. And his right hand on the table was trembling…</p><p>Without thinking too much, Pepper just stretched a bit on the table to touch him. He grabbed her hand and looked in her eyes, fear and pain battling with hope. She nodded at him with a soft smile to reassure him that everything was going to be fine.</p><p>Their jet took off. Next stop: Malibu.</p><p>_________________________________________________________</p><p>They arrived in the middle of the night.</p><p>Tony was horribly drunk but he hasn’t vomited yet.</p><p>He made bad jokes and flirted with the hostess on board, and did everything the eccentric billionaire would have done.</p><p>At the airport they’ve a private taxi to pick them up and taking them to a nice but not too exclusive hotel Pepper has booked when she was waiting him. Tony was a bit upset when he discovered she had booked two different rooms.</p><p>“No more jokes, Mr. Stark, please!” she replied him still at the reception. “People would start to believe rumors if you keep joking this way with strangers!”</p><p>She then lead the way to his suit and greeted him goodnight, letting the porter to take her small luggage to her room on the next door. Three minutes later she knocked on Tony’s room. He was still there like he hasn’t moved, and he seemed greatly shocked to see her back.</p><p>“I- I thought you…” he said. He was emotionally broken.</p><p>“Hush!” she said closing the door behind them.</p><p>One second later he was in her arms, breathing hard over her shoulder, hugging at her and just losing himself in her.</p><p>“Did he hurt you badly?” she asked.</p><p>“No… not much…I’ve been worse…”</p><p>“Good” she said, by kissing his head. “Then why did you drink that much on the plane?”</p><p>“For the taste” he calmly replied. “I felt his taste inside and I had to drink it away… and I thought it would work as a good excuse if I ended up vomiting… that wouldn’t be the first time I vomit on my plane…”</p><p>“Did you need to throw away?”</p><p>He shook his head. “No, he didn’t drug me this time… I think at least… he didn’t need to… I don’t know… I-…”</p><p>“Okay! Don’t worry, now we are safe! Why don’t you take a shower and get change for the night?” she asked him.</p><p>He nodded and disappeared in the toilet. It took him a good half hour, while Pepper was preparing a list of the things they needed to buy first in the morning and what they needed to do from that point on.</p><p>She also managed to talk to Jarvis and to have him in the hotel system to check for strange movements: it should have been considered hacking, but she didn’t care less. Mr. Stark’s life was more important than legal quibbles.</p><p>When Tony emerged from the toilet he appeared fresh new but very tired. And worried.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” she frowned, standing.</p><p>“I- I wish to ask…” he mumbled. Then he looked in her eyes and said: “I wish you could stay here tonight!”</p><p>She opened her eyes with incredulity: “And where else do you think I’ll go?”</p><p>“Well, you booked two rooms… you told me to stop joking…”</p><p>“And you made fun of me in front of the other men of the board!” she recalled. “It’s called ‘acting’, Tony! And we both did very good! And listen: I’d never leave you unless you tell me to!”</p><p>He moved in front of her, and slowly pressed a soft gentle kiss on her lips. And Pepper didn’t retract but follow the kiss, let him spread her lips opened a bit, slowly and delicate like he was managing something precious.</p><p>“I think I’m in love with you, miss Potts” he whispered when they separated. “And no, I’m not confused. I’m perfectly aware of the difference between love, possession and caring. I think I fell in love with you when you were describing coffee at that board meeting… I know it sounds weird…”</p><p>She stood there silent, cuddling his hair and considering his words. It wasn’t completely unexpected, still it was a bit surprised to be told by Tony Stark that he was in love with her.</p><p>“It’s okay if you don’t love me back, Peps… I- I’m not an easy person…” he went on, misinterpreting her silence.</p><p>“You’re wrong, Tony! I- I don’t know if this is love, but… well, let’s say that I’ll rush into fire for you, or kill anyone who dares to touch you! I- I just wanted you to be happy and fine, Tony, that’s my only desire!”</p><p>He was quite surprised. “Well, Peps, you won this round on declarations, you know?”</p><p>And you can tell he was pleased and moved by her words.</p><p>“I’ll give you the re-match every time you desire!” she smiled at him, pressing another soft kiss on his lips. “But, listen, for now we have to pretend with everyone else, okay?”</p><p>He frowned a bit. “I don’t like that… pretending… it’s a ‘game’ he makes me play… pretending to be fine… that I just hurt myself because I’m distracted while working… because I can’t really take care of myself…”</p><p>“I can imagine…” she replied. “Still we don’t need to complicate things more than they already are, okay? He’s already using me as your leverage and we played well today… he didn’t need to know too much!”</p><p>“Yes, I know…” he said, stubborn like a child. “Still it doesn’t mean I have to like it!”</p><p>She smiled, caressing his childish face. “You should grow again a beard” she laughed. “Not a big one… like a weird hippie goatee… it’d match one of your personality!”</p><p>“I’d give it a try again…” he smiled back.</p><p>When she went out of the toilet he was already half-asleep, and she spooned against him like they’ve done for the last days. She smiled a bit at the thought that she was probably the only woman with which Tony Stark has slept for more than one night… and without doing everything else!</p><p>Not that sleeping was peaceful: as always, Tony woke up several times, and every time he didn’t know where he was and needed to be reassured. She noted that he always recognized her and was not afraid by her.</p><p>At 6:30 she heard the unmistakable sound of someone throwing away.</p><p>“Tony?” she called him, worried, by seeing him vomiting in the toilet.</p><p>“Hangover…” he murmured. “Nothing to worry ab…”</p><p>“Ok, fine, naughty boy!”</p><p>“NO!” he screamed. He was deadly serious. “Don’t call me like he did!”</p><p>She gasped. “I’m sorry… I… I didn’t know about… I’m so sorry…”</p><p>She collapsed on the floor near him, by caressing his back apologetically.</p><p>“It’s fine, Peps” he replied, after a while. “You… you’re not him. I may be mentally compromised but I can distinguish between your intentions, for God’s sake! It’s just… it upsets me!”</p><p>“Right, I won’t call you like that again, neither for fun, I promise!” she said. “Besides, you’re already “my genius”, aren’t you?”</p><p>He smiled at her and she felt so overwhelmed.</p><p>“What about breakfast?” he proposed. “I’ve only drunk yesterday, and I’m literally starving. And I’m in need of many cups of coffee!”</p><p>“Ok, fine!” she agreed. “I need to go back to my room to prepare myself and all the stuff. May I trust you to get dressed for when I come back? I’ll order room service for breakfast here, and it’d look like a normal breakfast debrief.”</p><p>He nodded. “As you wish, Peps… do you might have an Aspirin or something? My head’s spinning…”</p><p>She couldn’t refrain herself from being worried for him for the 20 minutes she was away. She imposed her to calm down and not to become an overprotective mother, because Tony didn’t need that and she didn’t want that.</p><p>She was putting a soft make up on, while she looked herself in the eyes and she realized: Tony Stark has said that he loved her… and she had said it back!</p><p>“What a cliché! The billionaire and the secretary…” she smiled, but she was amused.</p><p>They had breakfast as planned while she listed him all the things they had to take care.</p><p>They agree that they would go together to the new Stark Industries lab, where he probably would have done a speech to the employees and, maybe, the press.</p><p>Then if everything was fine, he would have remained here working, while she would have checked on the new house outside town, the furniture and everything else. The lab downstairs needed Tony to tell her what he needed, but they could figure it out later.</p><p>“It’s a bit in the nowhere…” Tony considered looking at the surroundings of his new fancy house.</p><p>“That was more or less the idea” Pepper replied. “If you feel lonely, you may organize parties sometimes…”</p><p>“Wait! Where will you live?”</p><p>She smirked. “Officially, in a nice apartment in the city center, about 1 hour from your house, and half an hour from the airport and the lab.” She saw his tension and quickly added: “But in reality I’ve booked a nice king-size bed for your room I’d wish to test sooner or later… do you think it may work?”</p><p>He nodded, happy.</p><p>She knew that he knew that to maintain the cover this time she would have to spend some nights at her own apartment, just for misleading people eventually checking on them, but that was an issue they could take care lately.</p><p>Everything worked just fine in their first day in Malibu.</p><p>Tony was like an excited puppy around his new lab, and was just a bit pissed by seeing that the installation of the arc reactor was not proceeding at the right speed. He entertained some journalists by explaining the potentiality of the arc reactor for sustainability, without mentioning the other projects they were working on in the same lab.</p><p>Seeing him in his environment and how he moved and instructed people, and talked to the press, it was clear that, left alone, the genius wouldn’t have thrown the company in the pit, like someone had made the Board believe.</p><p>Sure, Tony Stark is always a bit too much in everything he did, and he liked to play at the center of the stage… and it was a bit eccentric, but he wasn’t dangerous for himself or the others!</p><p>She was perfectly calm when she left him alone to go check on his (or maybe their?) new house outside Malibu.</p><p>Indeed it was really quite out in the nowhere, but the view from the gigantic windows surrounding the house and especially in the living room and the bedroom was beyond amazing. For a girl who had lived all her life surrounded by buildings and concrete, that was a huge and welcome change.</p><p>She felt already relaxing, and she was sure Tony would feel the same: he needed a nest to be safe and relaxed, and she was sure that his creativity would improve consistently.</p><p>She was inspecting different options with the interior designer, when she heard the noise of a car approaching at high speed. A moment later Tony Stark himself entered his new house, by complementing her for the choice and deeply appreciating the view. He flirted with the designer, who reciprocated even too overtly, and then he tossed Pepper the keys of a car.</p><p>“Do you want me to park it underground, Mr. Stark?” she asked, trying her best not to sound acid. One thing was to pretend in public, but here there was only a designer!</p><p>“Uh? No, Miss Potts! You’re not my damn driver or parker!” he sounded honestly concerned about her tone. “Those keys are for you!”</p><p>“For…me?”</p><p>He nodded with a smile. “Yeah! You need a car if you have to move here and in the lab everyday so this is yours. Don’t worry, it’s an Audi TT new model not a Ferrari or a Maserati! I know what you like, I guess... I’ve bought it two hours ago and tested it on the road: it should work fine for you!”</p><p>“Mr. Stark, I… I can’t accept…” she was really speechless.</p><p>“Consider it like a Christmas present in advance!” his smile doubled. “Now, should we look at the underground? I wanted to organize my lab and garage before having my robots moved there!”</p><p>He was indeed happy like a kid on Christmas, and she thought it was the first time she has seen him this positive without having to be drunk.</p><p>He tortured the poor designer with ideas and eccentric stuff, and thank the God Pepper was there to avoid him to put a chocolate waterfall connecting the upper and the lower floor. In the end, they agreed on maintaining the actual waterfall, but to add gold sparkling around. And he insisted on keeping the grand piano already in the living room, even if she wasn’t sure he knew how to play it.</p><p>“My mother played it” he confessed when they were alone and he was standing beside the piano. “When I’m sad or scared I still play her favorite song in my head! She… she taught me a bit of it but I was never very good. Not as good as they expected from me… at least that was my feeling back then!”</p><p>He pressed the notes, and Pepper recognized the motive he always mumbled. The same motive she heard Jarvis singing to him when she still didn’t know anything of the hell he was going through.</p><p>She hugged him from behind, pressing a soft kiss on his neck.</p><p>“It’s all right not to be perfect, you know?” she said.</p><p>“Not if your surname is Stark!”</p><p>“Yes, I guess for Potts life is easier…” she joked, but she felt him tensing.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Peps! I didn’t mean to…”</p><p>“It’s fine, silly! I got what you meant!” she kissed him.</p><p>She thought he was so tender when he continued to apologize for allegedly hurting her feelings. Rhodey had told her Tony has always been socially awkward. She thought that he was really a good and caring guy despite every masks he put on.</p><p>“Peps?” he asked, tentatively. “Is that king size bed ready yet?”</p><p>She smirked at the not-so covert subtext. “I’m afraid it has not arrived yet, Mr. Stark. But, if I may suggest, there’s a big Jacuzzi in the private toilet which you might want to take into consideration…”</p><p>He smirked back, with a light in his eyes. “Oh, Peps, I love you so much!”</p><p>They went to the toilet by kissing hardly and passionately. And Pepper had to admit out loud that Tony perfectly owned his reputation for how he managed to put his partner’s pleasure as top priority. He made her come so loudly that she thanked that the house was so isolated.</p><p>“I guess someone enjoyed it!” he smirked and kept kissing her on the shoulder. “And wait until I show you my special move… you’re turning crazy!”</p><p>She couldn’t believe it could be something more, but she was starting to believe that he was really full of surprises. She kissed him back, and they just cuddle in the hot water until it cooled down.</p><p>To Tony’s suggestion, they went out for dinner, just to explore the different restaurants of their new life.</p><p>Then, despite her protests, he insisted on taking one single suite in a very expensive hotel in the center, since neither their houses were ready.</p><p>She followed his lead in bed, and when he started to kiss her between her legs she had to admit that he was right: his special move turned her crazy.</p><p>_______________________________________________________</p><p>Their life in Malibu was like everything they could have dreamt of.</p><p>As Pepper has planned, the construction of the arc reactor and the Jericho missiles was keeping Tony very focused and occupied in the new Stark Industry facility during the day, while at nights they have just to pick up one of the many fancy parties the golden boy has been invited too.</p><p>After the news has spread that he has moved to Malibu, everyone wanted a piece of him. And he always carried her along as his assistant, so after a while it was pretty obvious to everyone that there was something more.</p><p>And when an impertinent journalist asked him aloud, he replied that miss Potts and himself were free people just enjoying each other’s company with all the benefits implied.</p><p>As always, he didn’t think much on the consequences. And he turned really upset when he read on Twitter that they’ve called Pepper a social climber slut (more or less a textual quote).</p><p>“That was not what I meant!” he shouted, infuriated.</p><p>“Calm down, honey!” she replied, patting next to her on the couch. The night view on the ocean at sunset was something exceptional. “I’m used to it since I was young. It didn’t hurt me anymore…”</p><p>“It doesn’t look like!” he replied, nestling on her side.</p><p>“How can you tell?” she asked, suspicious.</p><p>He smirked and touch her nose while he said: “You wrinkle your nose twice when you’re upset by something! And there’s a murderous look in your eyes that makes me scared and horny at the same time!”</p><p>“Oh really!” she mocked him. “Like this?”</p><p>She rolled over him and he let her lead.</p><p>“I love you, Mr. Stark!” she mumbled, moving over him.</p><p>“I love you too, Miss Potts!” he replied, gasping as he reached his climax.</p><p>Life was just perfect in Malibu… although they both knew it couldn’t last for long.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading and sorry for grammatical mistakes!<br/>Every comments will be very appreciated!</p><p>Next chapter: life in Malibu... and Happy will join the group (so maybe you'd like to read also the first chapter of "The loyal man" XD)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A dangerous game</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Tony &amp; Pepper found more allied, starting with their bodyguard Harold "Happy" Hogan.<br/>But the game is still on, and Stane will manage to break the couple... or try to!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For the story of Happy's involvement, please check "The loyal man - chapter 1", which is the first story of the series.</p>
<p>Trigger warning: there is an overt mention of a panic attack and a car accident.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Life in Malibu was almost peaceful, but Pepper has insisted to hire a bunch of bodyguards to follow Tony around to reinforce the security measures. They would have been particularly useful especially in his movements in and out the house, which has been turned into a fortress.</p>
<p>Tony had spent many weeks in perfecting the sounding system of the house, and also to enhance all the security measurements, including cameras and scanners that included the parking outside the house.</p>
<p>He chilled like a child when he heard Jarvis's voice resonating all around. Pepper wondered whether Jarvis will be installed also in the bedroom and in the toilet, but Jarvis reassured her that he could be very discrete and leave them all the privacy they wanted. It was a matter of trust, but Pepper trusted Jarvis as much as Tony did. Besides, it was clear that this was Tony’s way to (not) deal with the loss of his father figure and that he needed him more now than ever.</p>
<p>Tony has connected Jarvis to the house, as well as on the Stark Industries facility, on Pepper’s fake house, on their cars, and on everything else had the “Stark” logo on it.</p>
<p>However, despite his and Jarvis’s efforts, they couldn’t have access into Stane’s private files.</p>
<p>They’ve found something, but not what they were primarily looking for. At least, Tony kept saying that he needed to prove a connection with a certain “Mr. Secretary” she didn’t know about. And she didn’t dare to ask, since the only time she had tried Tony has turned hysterical.</p>
<p>Then Jarvis has told her that this was probably related to his former self death, because he also didn’t know much... and that was pretty unusual!</p>
<p>So she has dropped the issue.</p>
<p>It was frustrating, though, and they needed to be cautious not to make him discovering their moves.</p>
<p>Stane was already upset when he has discovered the Jarvis project, but he hasn’t probably grasped the entity of the work and its potentiality: and Tony had well played the pitiful kid who missed his former butler when he has met him again before moving to Malibu. He has a new scar on his shoulder to testify it.</p>
<p>Despite every security measures, Pepper felt more secure with her gun, and with men with guns around his genius.</p>
<p>So she spread the word around the different clubs and agency they went regularly in, and then she did a series of job interview at the car circuit in Malibu.</p>
<p>Tony’s main flaw were motors, and he has already spent a huge quantity of money to buy new cars, some of them especially designed for him, and on which he made some personal improvement in the lab/garage under his house. He has moved also his robots there, Dummy and R., and the access to the lab has been doubled secured, especially since when they have started to organize parties at their house.</p>
<p>The only people who could access the lab were obviously Tony, Pepper and Rhodes, who has quickly paid a visit between one mission and the other.</p>
<p>The day of the job interview, Tony was just playing around like the billionaire he was, by testing the speed of his cars, and playing with the professional drivers, while she did all the job of enrolling his future bodyguards.</p>
<p>Jarvis was helping her a lot in checking their records, because she didn’t want any surprises, and especially she didn’t want anyone even remotely related with Stane. Not that that was easy to understand from a CV, but Jarvis was very quick in making associations and giving her the probabilities each candidate has worked somewhere even remotely connected with that man.</p>
<p>She had already selected three or four though guys with a past in the Army, and kicked off more than 75% of the others, when a very weird man stood in front of her.</p>
<p>He was not like the other, starting with the fact that he seemed ‘soft’ more than though, and he had a way of standing it didn’t resemble an officer or something similar.</p>
<p>When he told her his name was Harold Hogan and Jarvis had checked for his records, she immediately acknowledged why she was feeling sympathy for him. Like herself, he was a literally no one, just the son of an Irish immigrant, the first of way too many children, some of which were tragically passed away at a young age. He had been kicked off school for having punched the son of a rich guy who has now prosecuted in court for harassment towards his assistants, which probably meant that the man had deserved that punch back then.</p>
<p>What surprised her was that Mr. Hogan seemed simply average, but also honest.</p>
<p>She didn’t know exactly why, but she had a positive feeling about him, so she enrolled him.</p>
<p>And she couldn’t be more right!</p>
<p>After less than 20 minutes, he had covered Tony with his body while one crazy man was trying to shoot him (just another crazy exhibitionist, they had one a week… and Tony mocked her for wanting bodyguards!).</p>
<p>And it turned out that Mr. Hogan didn’t know to have saved Tony Stark’s life but to have acted by instinct.</p>
<p>And when he told them that his nickname was “Happy”, Pepper could witnessed the joy sparkling in Tony’s eyes.</p>
<p>“I need happiness in my life!” he has stated, by challenging the big guy in a car-race on the circuit.</p>
<p>In few weeks, Happy became more than a bodyguard and something close to a friend, especially for Tony, while he maintained a sort of deferent respect mixed with fear for her. Tony mocked her in private for scaring the poor Happy with her attitude, and she was quite amused by it.</p>
<p>After a couple of months, all the other enrolled bodyguards have resigned, partially because she kicked them off, especially the one who have called Tony a “faggot”, or because they have had better job offers. She suspected that Stane was beyond those offers, in an attempt to isolate his golden boy once more.</p>
<p>Not that Tony resembled a boy anymore: the sun of California has made his skin a bit darker, although he spent many days in the lab, and he had now a weird beard he spent hours to fix (she made fun of him, but she liked it). He was also training in the gym with Happy, who was teaching him a bit of boxing… in her opinion, they were just playing around like grown-up kids, but it was fine: Tony needed to play like the child he was never allowed to be!</p>
<p>And Tony indeed seemed to have been reborn, and his nightmares have also almost disappeared.</p>
<p>They knocked at the door of his mind again every now and then, especially when Stane called or they had to discuss something related to the Board meetings.</p>
<p>Curiously, his nightmares increased also when there were fireworks: Tony has never explained that to her, but she noticed he was terrified by fireworks… which was astonishing if one considered that he worked with explosions or in making things explode!</p>
<p>Pepper noticed that during parties, if they started to play fireworks Tony stood tense in a corner, or grabbed at her, or simply disappeared in anxiety attack that ranged from bad to very bad.</p>
<p>The last time that happened it was pretty scaring for her and also for the poor Happy.</p>
<p>They’ve been invited by a famous celebrity to her house for New Year’s Eve. Pepper has already accepted, even if Tony didn’t sound so enthusiast. But then he agreed, maybe only because he knew that she wanted to go.</p>
<p>He insisted to ask Happy if he wanted to go too, like a guest and not like his bodyguard. The big guy accepted since he has nothing else to do.</p>
<p>Pepper shook her head for the rumors that <em>that</em> would have spread when the three of them would have shown up at the party… but both Tony and Happy seemed completely unaware of it!).</p>
<p>The party was going perfectly until the count-down for New Year.</p>
<p>She was in the middle of the crowd, cheering and toasting with her champagne, when the fireworks started. She turned automatically to where Tony was supposed to be, that his by her side, but she didn’t see him. But he was there a few seconds ago!</p>
<p>She called Happy with a sign, probably disturbing him as he was chatting with a nice blondie. But Happy hasn’t seen Mr. Stark  or where he has gone neither. </p>
<p>They waited for a moment, because maybe he went to the toilet… but then it was clear that Tony Stark has just disappeared! They turned very worried, ad started to look for him around the house.</p>
<p>They needed to keep it quite to avoid the scandal, but it was quite easy: everyone was watching the fireworks or singing weird songs, and they weren't paying attention to them.</p>
<p>Finally, Happy found Tony hiding in a storage closet or something, all curled up on himself and moving rhythmically. Pepper knew that when he acted like this, he was panicking very badly.</p>
<p>And indeed it took her a moment to reassure him, because he was like lost in an old nightmare. He didn't know where or when he was, and he didn't seem to be able of talking properly. Pepper had to put one earphone on him, and to let him listen to Jarvis’s voice for a long half hour. That finally calmed him down and made him come back to reality.</p>
<p>Then Pepper and Happy managed to drag him out of the party, and then back home without raising too much rumor. But he was wasted.</p>
<p>Pepper had to ask Happy to remain by their house, because she would probably need more help.</p>
<p>The day after, Tony has apologized to both of them, but especially to Happy for having ruined his night.</p>
<p>He stated that he was drunk, but Pepper was sure that the big guy hasn’t believed his Boss fully: he has already seen Tony Stark drunk, and that was not how he behaved under alcohol!</p>
<p>But, as always, Happy didn’t ask anything, and simply reassured his Boss that it was fine and that he had spent a wonderful night. He has also collected some phone numbers, and he and Tony spent the following hours to check on every possible flirts for the big boy.</p>
<p>Pepper shook her head and spoke to the only other adult there: Jarvis. The AI, however, didn’t explain the reasons of Tony’s behavior, even if it was clear to Pepper that he knew.</p>
<p>"It's quite personal, Miss Potts, and it's up to Mr. Stark to eventually tell you..." Jarvis stated.</p>
<p>Apart from these small episodes, they were passing a wonderful time in Malibu.</p>
<p>However, episodes like the one at New Year’s Eve reminded them that the game was still on, and their peace was just a temporal illusion.</p>
<p>But for eight months they had the roses, as they say.</p>
<p>____________________________________________</p>
<p>Eight months since their arrive, the arc reactor was ready to be presented to the world and Pepper had to organize a huge conference press.</p>
<p>All the Stark Industries Board would have been present, and that included Obadiah Stane. Not that he didn’t have contacts with them, and especially with Tony during those months.</p>
<p>He regularly called him for working reasons and in the meanwhile he checked on his wellbeing: but for the moment everything was in line of a normal partnership and maybe a godfather-stepson relationship.</p>
<p>However, both Pepper and Tony frowned when he congratulated him for his assistant’s excellent organizing skills on every field and “positions” (textual quote). The implications couldn’t be more evident.</p>
<p>“I told you I’ll become your weak point” she reminded him the day before the conference press. They were cuddling on their couch, without really willing to do everything else.</p>
<p>“You already were… since day 1!” he replied, head on his lap, while she was playing with his hair.</p>
<p>They stayed silent for long.</p>
<p>“Do you think he’ll try to do something to you tomorrow?” she asked finally.</p>
<p>“I’m sure he will, and I’m already feeling dirty!” he replied, hiding his head on her neck. “But whatever he wanted, I’ll play along to make him believing he could still control me!”</p>
<p>“I- I really don’t like it…” she confessed.</p>
<p>“I let you imagine how much I do…” he scoffed.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Tony! I know you’re the victim here… but it hurt me to feel so powerless!” she felt tears slipping on her cheeks.</p>
<p>“I know, Peps!” he said, stretching an arm up to clean her face. “But you told me we can get through this, and I’m sure we will… we just need to play well tomorrow as we have done before. As I told you once, this is a game of chess, and we are both the players and the pawns.”</p>
<p>“Now you’re supposed you’d say again that I’m the Queen…”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s pretty obvious! You can move freely everywhere, and you’re the most dangerous one! Obadiah recognized your value since the first time he saw you… that’s why he was mad at me when I took you away from him! I wasn’t thinking of that, though: I only knew that I wanted a brilliant person like you by my side!”</p>
<p>“Thanks, honey!” she smiled, caressing his face.</p>
<p>He was focus on his chess metaphor: “Obadiah is the black king we have to defeat… or so I believed. Now maybe he’s more the Queen, but whatever… I still haven’t identified all his pieces… I know one of his horse, a bad guy named Rumlow. Obie has played low during these months, so I’m sure it’s up to something… still, we have to stick to the plan and on our own game. Don’t worry: I’m already working on enrolling other pawns on our side!”</p>
<p>“And which pawn are you in this game? Obviously the white king…”</p>
<p>“No, Peps, the white king is the Stark Industries. I’m the king’s Bishop… and we’re opening this new game with the gambit!”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “I don’t know chess well… I only feel it’d be dangerous…”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry!” he lied to her. “We have always had a secret pawn in Jarvis, right, old pal?”</p>
<p>“Once again, I’d prefer you don’t refer to me as “old pal”, Mr. Stark!” the AI’s voice resonated in their bedroom.</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________</p>
<p>It has been fine. Well, nothing more than what they expected.</p>
<p>The presentation was great, and everyone cheered Tony. Their quotations raised incredibly, and the press was enthusiast with the ecological implications of the arc reactor.</p>
<p>They’ve prepared a party at the facility, which involved also businessmen and all the workers of the Stark Industries.</p>
<p>Pepper was taking care of everything, always surrounded by people, when Happy came to her with a worried look and he confessed he had lost track of Mr. Stark. Last time he has seen him, he was talking with Mr. Stane and they were walking around together.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure, but I may have heard Mr. Stane asking Mr. Stark to see his office… do you want me to check on them, Miss Potts?” he asked.</p>
<p>She narrowed her eyes by looking at where Tony’s office was in the building (not that Tony spent much time in that office). She frowned but she knew it was part of the plan, and she needed to stick to it.</p>
<p>“No, Happy, I’m sure he’s fine!” she sighed.</p>
<p>“As you wish, Miss…” the bodyguard replied, but he didn’t seem persuaded.</p>
<p>She wondered how much he did understood of all that mess, but she didn’t feel the strength to start that discussion. And also, the least he knew the safer he was. On that, Ton was right!</p>
<p>Tony and Obadiah came back one hour later, the older man laughing and grabbing at the younger like he wanted to live a mark.</p>
<p>Tony acted chill, but she noticed he was drinking more than before. By the end of the party he was deeply drunk.</p>
<p>When the party was over, Pepper called a taxi for everyone, including the members of the Board for whom she had reserved the best hotels.</p>
<p>For a moment she was scared at the idea Stane wanted Tony to follow him, but he waved them goodbye and left her to take care of the drunk genius.</p>
<p>Tony collapsed in his car, and Happy drove them both home. Pepper asked him to stay and use the guest room, by making the excuse that it was quite late and he too needed to rest. He thanked her, but he was glancing worried looks at Tony.</p>
<p>Indeed, the genius was throwing away in the toilet right after he has entered their room. She was quickly behind him with aspirins but he refused.</p>
<p>“He gave me something, motherfucker!” he swore. “I haven’t realized it, but I was seeing you all fuzzy when I came back… like Happy had two heads or something like that…”</p>
<p>“Jeez!” she exclaimed. She had noticed he was weird, but she had never imagined.</p>
<p>“It was funny at college…” he tried to joke, before putting two fingers in his mouth and forcing the vomit. She considered how old Tony Stark was at college, but, for the good of peace, she did not commented.</p>
<p>“I need to take a shower, Peps! I need a long hot shower to wash <em>him</em> away…”</p>
<p>She hasn’t said it aloud, but he smelled of cigar right from his skin.</p>
<p>She left him alone when she was sure he was going to be fine.</p>
<p>When he came in bed, a good 40 minutes after, she curled around him and kissed him softly until they both fell asleep.</p>
<p>She wished that was the only time, but it quickly become evident that they were playing at another level, and that Stane was a better chess player than they could ever hope at being.</p>
<p>To put it simply, he increased his presence around Tony, who slowly and inexorably started to be hysterical.</p>
<p>And the more she tried to make him step back, to change plan, the more stubborn he became.</p>
<p>Until their arguments turned loudly and publicly.</p>
<p>And, obviously, Stane was there one of the times it happened.</p>
<p>“Ohi ohi, troubles in heaven?” he grinned, by entering their house. Allowing him inside the house (but not the lab) about one month before had been one the major argument they had. “Honestly, Tony, I’ve told you that red-haired women are dangerous, but you have insisted…”</p>
<p>“Nice to see you, Obie!” he replied, plainly.</p>
<p>“Me too, my boy! Sorry for the intrusion, but the Board was pressing on progress on those Jericho projects… and I was deeply sorry to learn from your co-workers that you’ve blocked everything to focus on some flying jet propulsions or something. Is that true?”</p>
<p>“Jericho had a miscalculation in the algorithm… I’m trying to find the problem!” Tony replied, but he was staring at Pepper as for accusing her to have passed him this information.</p>
<p>He poured himself something to drink from the alcoholic storage. In the last weeks it has become quite a constant even before 9 AM. Tony seemed to live on alcohol and coffee, his paranoias consuming him inside and outside.</p>
<p>“Hey, tiger, isn’t it a bit too early for drinking?” he asked, apparently worried.</p>
<p>“I haven’t slept so it’s late, not early!” Tony replied.</p>
<p>“Well, maybe you should just try to sleep, my boy!”</p>
<p>“Yes, Tony, maybe you can just try to sleep!” Pepper added without thinking.</p>
<p>He glanced at her a fire look. “Now you <em>both</em> allied against me?” he asked, acid.</p>
<p>She gasped, speechless, while Obadiah laughed a bit, shaking his big bald head: “Oh, boy boy…”</p>
<p>“Tony…” she tried.</p>
<p>“I’ll be in my lab all day to fix that problem!” he stated, running downstairs.</p>
<p>She realized he had left her alone with Stane, the moment the man was menacingly behind her and whispered in her ear: “You’re good, Miss Potts, but remember your place... maybe under a desk like the nice Miss Chander! You will avoid yourself a great amount of trouble!”</p>
<p>She jumped away but he has grabbed her by her wrist.</p>
<p>“Keep calm, girl!” he said softly. “You don’t want to ruin your pretty face!”</p>
<p>She frozen inside, like the deer in front of the car’s light.</p>
<p>“Happy will arrive soon… Tony is downstairs… I’ll just need to call him!” she thought.</p>
<p>But inside her she knew that Tony wouldn’t have heard her: he always put the music at the highest possible volume recently.</p>
<p>And where was Happy? Why was he late?</p>
<p>He has never been late once, at least he arrived early to make coffee for himself and his Boss.</p>
<p>But now she didn’t have time to worry for Happy, because Stane was very closed and was caressing her face.</p>
<p>He smirked and stepped back, while saying: “Not today, darling.”</p>
<p>He went to the door and added: “And tell Tony to fix Jericho before someone else gets hurt!”</p>
<p>When he was gone, she collapsed on her knees and took big breaths before her mind could be able to process what has happened.</p>
<p>She screamed aloud when two hands were trying to raise her.</p>
<p>But it was just Tony, astonished and horrified.</p>
<p>“I- I haven’t truly left you alone… I’m… I’m sorry…” he mumbled.</p>
<p>“I- I thought he was back… that you were him…” she said.</p>
<p>They were both on their nerves.</p>
<p>“Peps!” Tony started. “I need to tell you something… You need to know now…”</p>
<p>But then Jarvis intervened aloud: “I’m sorry Mr. Stark, miss Potts! I need you should both go to the hospital. I- I’ve received the emergency call from the Mr. Hogan’s car: he has had an accident a few moments ago… there are ambulances coming. I can’t tell if he’s still alive!”</p>
<p>“Before someone else gets hurt…” Pepper mumbled, by repeating Stane’s last words.</p>
<p>They rushed to the hospital, with Tony like in a catatonic state.</p>
<p>Pepper took care of all the bureaucracy and financial part to have Happy moved in the best room: he was in a very bad shape but alive.</p>
<p>He has been lucky, the doctors said: if the truck that ran over him had hit the opposite side he would be food for the fishes.</p>
<p>Tony collapsed by his bodyguard’s side and never moved for hours until he opened his eyes and confirmed him to be alive. He granted him a full paid time to recover, gave two nurses a generous tip to take special care of him, and then went away.</p>
<p>Pepper tried to stop him, but he simply stated: “We were good, but he’s better, Peps. He responded to my gambit, crushed my horse and now he’s menacing my queen... a player must know when he has lost! I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I’ll go check on those bon-bons… and I apologize to Obie!”</p>
<p>“Tony, no, please!” she begged, horrified.</p>
<p>“Don’t you get you’re going to be the next?” he shouted. Everybody was watching, so he forced himself to a lower tone. “Go home, Peps. <em>Your</em> home. I’ll call you when I’ll need you again!”</p>
<p>And he jumped in his car and disappeared.</p>
<p>She was emotionally devastated.</p>
<p>She passed some time to check on Happy’s conditions, but she couldn’t do anything more than waiting.</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________</p>
<p>She passed the following two days by moving from the hospital to her house: she has lived there very few days in eight months and she felt like a foreigner in her own bedroom.</p>
<p>Besides, she couldn’t stopped to think about Tony, on how she has failed him, how she had let that monster putting his hands on him again.</p>
<p>Even Jarvis didn’t speak to her, since he stated that Mr. Stark has forbidden any messages outside from working matters.</p>
<p>The evening of the third day, she received a text from Tony who required her presence in his office the next day. It was so formal and detached that she cried in frustration.</p>
<p>So that was it: he has pushed her back to her role of assistant, and nothing more.</p>
<p>She should have known that since the beginning: what was she thinking?</p>
<p>She wasn’t like them, she wasn’t rich and famous, she didn’t carry an important surname… she must learnt to stay at her place.</p>
<p>For the first time in her life, she felt hopeless.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the following day she went to work as required.</p>
<p>She wasn’t surprised to see the circle under Tony’s eyes and to see the full glass of scotch at 9:30 in the morning.</p>
<p>“Have a sit, miss Potts!” he waved her. “I’ve visited Mr. Hogan this morning and he appeared to be better, which I’m grateful for. I’ll be out by the end of the week.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Mr. Stark! We’ve been lucky…”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe in luck, miss Potts, and neither should you!” he replied, acid.</p>
<p>“What do you want me here for, Mr. Stark?” she asked after a moment of tense silence.</p>
<p>He passed him a list of places and charity events. She remembered to have filled that together with him to keep his nights as full as possible, to give Stane less occasions to come closer.</p>
<p>“I need you to revise my timetable and to free me two evenings a week, and the following mornings. For the next two weeks Obie will be in town. And in one month from now, I am expected in New York to give the full Board a careful update on the Jericho missiles. They must be functioning!”</p>
<p>She had tears in her eyes while she replied: “Of course, Mr. Stark. Anything else?”</p>
<p>“No, it’s all, you can go, Miss Potts. You’ve your office on the other side of the floor.”</p>
<p>The following weeks turned blurred to her: she went to job in the morning, passed Mr. Stark the reports to sign, organized and scheduled his activities but it was like working for someone else.</p>
<p>He was professional and nice with her, but detached and, when in public, almost cold.</p>
<p>And at parties he started to go alone, to date random girls and to drag them in his house, in what was their bed, while she had to kick them away in the morning, by providing them fresh clothes from the laundry and a taxi, before coming down in the lab with Mr. Stark’s coffee.</p>
<p>Sometimes he also dated some guys as well, and with some of them he went to hotel rooms.</p>
<p>The scandal journals of all around the globe were thanking him silently.</p>
<p>At least Pepper noted that still had access to the lab.</p>
<p>Apart from that small contacts, their level of conversation remained on a very official and cold level.</p>
<p>She felt a whole inside she has never felt before.</p>
<p>She started considering other jobs opportunity which have started to rain on her since a few weeks.</p>
<p>“What a coincidence…” she thought, while reading an advertisement for special assistant of a famous super-model.</p>
<p>But then she remembered one key fight: Potts didn’t believe in coincidence!</p>
<p>That must have been a plan to keep them apart, and she has fallen for it.</p>
<p>Well, not that knowing it made things easier: she could want to fight back, but if Tony didn’t want to they were screwed.</p>
<p>And Miss Chander had been right: if they couldn’t win this, she would be better considering grabbing the money and running away as far as she could… while she still could.</p>
<p>She made her mind to stay by Mr. Stark’s side until the selling of those Jericho missiles was over.</p>
<p>Then she would have resigned, by pretending a golden parachute, and maybe she’d travel a bit around the world. As he had stated once, Europe would have been nice…</p>
<p>Three days before Mr. Stark had to attend the board meeting in New York, she was working in the living room of the Malibu house as always on Wednesdays when Mr. Stark called her down in the lab through Jarvis.</p>
<p>She automatically took a coffee for him and went down.</p>
<p>As always, he was working on something weird on his table, something that look like an arm propulsion of some sort. Obviously he was following different projects instead of focusing on Jericho, but it has always been his way.</p>
<p>The first thing she noticed when he opened the door of the lab was the loud rock music: it wasn’t unusual, but at this volume was something enough to turn every normal people deaf.</p>
<p>“Mr. Stark?” she shouted.</p>
<p>After a moment, he waved at her to come closer.</p>
<p>And as soon as she entered the perimeter of his desk the music disappear like a distant noise.</p>
<p>“What…?” she asked, looking around.</p>
<p>“Please, Peps, refrain from any overt reaction and just take a sit and notes like I was dictating you something!” he said, only briefly glancing at her. And she saw the pain and sorrow in his eyes while he continued: “I’m sorry for having been an asshole in these days… well, weeks… or months… whatever… but I couldn’t talk to you till today: he was listening and if I’m correct also watching! I have had a suspicion before, but after what happened to Happy I needed to be even more careful!”</p>
<p>She took a sit, completely stunned by the turning of the events.</p>
<p>“He has discovered Jarvis in the main system of the Stark Industries” he went on. “He told me at the launch of the arc reactor. I’ve tried to… persuade him, let’s say, that it was nothing, but he hasn’t believed me. He had put his best hackers at work on Jarvis, but my old pal has noticed their attempts and shut down the most valuable systems. But once again we had to make him believe that he was in control... So I’ve created a counter-virus which evolved and adapted: I’ve called it Agent Smith! However, it functioned a bit too well and damaged Jarvis as well… sorry, old pal!”</p>
<p>“No need to apologize, Mr. Stark!” the AI replied. “I’m sorry not to have been up to your expectations… but, as I’ve already said, refrain from calling me “old pal”… please!”</p>
<p>“Anyway… I was once again arrogant and stupid not to see that coming!” Tony continued. He was very pissed. “I’ve risked again Jarvis’s life, and also yours and Happy’s… that was why I needed to exclude all of you from my next moves!”</p>
<p>“Wait! Were you acting all this time?” Pepper asked.</p>
<p>He smirked sadly. “I’m not a bad liar, after all… please, forgive me, Peps!”</p>
<p>She desperately wanted to cry, and hug and kiss him. She stopped just in time.</p>
<p>“What do you mean he’s watching?” she asked, frowning.</p>
<p>“I am not 100% sure, but it’s better to presume the worst! I’ve created a field around this desk to blur it a bit… he hasn’t turned mad at me for that, so maybe I’m just being paranoiac…” he said, by continuing to work. She pretended to write something down. “I know for sure he had access to our bedroom well before we broke up… well, we faked the breaking up… it was a fake, you know that, Peps? I- I haven’t left you alone… I was watching through Jarvis… I was… <em>pretending</em>!”</p>
<p>She saw his eyes filling with tears he quickly washed away.</p>
<p>And she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to believe, but when he looked back at her she trusted him: that Tony was the only one real, the only one he mattered to her… and God helped her, she would have done everything for him!</p>
<p>“I’ll walk through fire for you, Tony! I love you!” she said, forcing to remain still.</p>
<p>His smile warmed her heart.</p>
<p>“I needed to hear this, you know?” he admitted. “Listen, we don’t have much time! The meeting in NY is in a few days and I still haven’t fixed the Jericho yet… I’m stalling it on purpose! I’m luring him in! And these bon-bons are a trap… But I need my Queen… I need your collaboration!”</p>
<p>“Sure, Tony, whatever you need!”</p>
<p>“You must know it could be dangerous… especially after what has happened to Happy! I’ve miscalculated that time… underestimated his cruelty! We haven’t been lucky: he didn’t want him death on purpose. Happy knew nothing, and that was a warning for me! The next would be either you or Rhodes… I can’t contact him, but he should be quite safe. I… I’ve persuaded him not to assign Rhodey to a certain mission… I still have my special move!”</p>
<p>Pepper had an idea on how he managed to “persuade” Stane and especially what Tony’s “special move” was. She felt sick.</p>
<p>“I’m just a whore, maybe…” Tony was following. “But I’ll make sure to bring that monster away from my friends! He won’t hurt anyone!”</p>
<p>“You don’t need to do all this alone, Tony!” she finally managed to say. “I’m here… I’ll always be here for you!”</p>
<p>He looked at her. “He had videos from your house as well. From your living room and… your bedroom!”</p>
<p>She felt so violated and furious that she could have smashed Stane’s skull with bare hands.</p>
<p>“He’d pay for this as well, Tony!” she said. “Now stop the crap, and tell me what I’ve to do! I’m your Queen, am I not?”</p>
<p>He smiled. “I knew my Pepper would have said that! So, that’s how we’ll play this time…”</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________</p>
<p>They left Malibu two days later, still pretending their relationship to be nothing more than the one between a Boss and his secretary.</p>
<p>Happy has escorted them to the airport, but he would have remained in Malibu. Tony has asked him to live by their house to check against possible intrusions while they were away. The big guy has accepted with joy, because he loved the big Jacuzzi Boss has put in the guest room (Pepper suspected Tony has done so after Happy has explicitly told him he has never tried one).</p>
<p>On Tony’s private jet, Pepper sat on the opposite side of him, carefully avoiding to look up at him especially when he was flirting with the hostess.</p>
<p>Tony drank a lot as always. She now knew he was training himself to afford a certain huge amount of alcohol and drugs, following a special plan developed together with Jarvis and someone else he didn’t specified but who was specialized in chemistry and human biology.</p>
<p>She believed that Tony’s liver would have had something to say about that 10 or 20 years from now… but that would have meant they’ve managed to survive till that date.</p>
<p>Which was everything but certain, because Tony’s plan was crazy!</p>
<p>It has to start with him shouting at her to go grab something in his office upstairs while he then made a show with the board meeting. He was evident he was drunk, and he would have openly insulted Obadiah, by knowing for sure he would have turned quite upset... and that he would have wanted to punish him lately!</p>
<p>But if they were good enough, that wouldn’t have to happen.</p>
<p>Because while he made a show she had to go upstairs and through Tony’s fixed computer in his office using a special pen drive to bypass Stane’s security office and get access to the drive. There she would have found all the files she needed, hopefully the ones Stane was using to blackmail Tony, but surely some other files that told dirty on him.</p>
<p>Tony needed the proofs that Stane was playing both sides, by selling Tony’s weapons also to third parts. And he also needed to prove a certain connection with a so-called “Mr. Secretary”.</p>
<p>And there are other things that he has already suspected but have been confirmed by one of his night flirts. That one in particular was a tall brunette, that Pepper had heard introducing as Miss Van Dyne. Tony had flirted openly with her for a while, then they’ve moved to Tony’s house in Malibu. When Pepper had arrived in the morning, she was already gone.</p>
<p>Then there was a journalist, a very impertinent and beautiful blonde, who had openly attacked him on a red carpet with some photos he had from the Iraqi desert. Happy had tried to take her away, but Tony had said it was fine. He has later told Pepper that he needed someone reliable in the press, and that young lady hungry for a scoop was exactly what he needed! They’ve made a deal: a once-in-a-lifetime scoop over the dirty of the vice-CEO of Stark Industries for her collaboration with him… and a fake night of passion. He used her and she used him: ..because she had accepted the deal, but had pretended also the full night not to be a fake.</p>
<p>The last in the list was the “affaire” with a young lad named Phil. He turned out to be special agent Coulson of the non-government agency called SHIELD: with him he had to fake more, by moving to an hotel especially booked that night and, thus, outside Stane’s control.</p>
<p>And it had turned out that Coulson worked with a Maria Hill, who years ago had been an intern at Stark Industries together with Pepper: she had been sent there on purpose by SHIELD to investigate on Stane because he was suspected of terroristic activity since then.</p>
<p>He has told her everything, including the fact that now they had more allies, but they still need other proofs.</p>
<p>And said proofs were in Stane’s computer, which couldn’t be accessed directly because of his two watchdogs, the two secretaries, on the upper floor.</p>
<p>But Tony had designed a special pen drive to bypass the whole floor system, in order to get Jarvis the access to the other folders.</p>
<p>Best case scenario, it worked immediately, Pepper downloaded the files and took them to agent Coulson, who would wait for her on the main floor.</p>
<p>Worst case scenario, the drive didn’t work and they’d be discovered.</p>
<p>In that case she had to speak with Coulson and he would have invited her for a dinner like he was flirting with her. She would have accepted and gone away.</p>
<p>Pepper was terribly tense when she went on the upper floor.</p>
<p>The two secretaries on the main desk looked disdainful at her, but she just greeted them and marched to Mr. Stark’s office.</p>
<p>She sat at his desk and accessed the computer, then she put the pen drive on. They’ve decided not to talk among them at distance in order to avoid to be intercepted.</p>
<p>She faked to read Tony’s letters on his desk, and to answer the emails, while she saw Jarvis at work. It took a good 20 minutes but then she had access to the data… and from a first look they were really dangerous ones: contact with notorious mob gangsters, terrorists, some association called Hydra, and personal information of every key figures in the USA, including the actual President and his daughters.</p>
<p>She was copying them on the pen drive, while the system was shut down. She thought of an electric problem but everything else was working.</p>
<p>“Troubles, miss Potts?” one of the secretary, Janice maybe, was asking from the door.</p>
<p>She swallowed heavily. “SHIT!”</p>
<p>“Everything’s fine, miss …?” she said out loud, standing.</p>
<p>“Not your business, Potts” the other replied, acid.</p>
<p>“Well, miss Not Your Business, I’m afraid to have to cut our wonderful conversation, but I have to leave!”</p>
<p>“Oh it wouldn’t be the only cut, girl!” the other shouted at her, laughing.</p>
<p>She didn’t think of it… she wasn’t thinking at all!</p>
<p>The only thing that was in her mind was that she needed to go downstairs and take Tony away. And then find that Coulson guy from SHIELD and disappear.</p>
<p>Stane’s former secretary was right: they’ve never stood a chance!</p>
<p>She arrived just in time to see the counselors waiting for the elevator, everyone but Stane and Stark.</p>
<p>She rushed in the meeting room already imagining the worse: but there they were perfectly dressed and talking, a bit too close, to be honest, and by their body language it was clear that Stane was menacing Tony.</p>
<p>Did he know already? And most of all, how she could justify her sudden presence there?</p>
<p>“Mr. Stark, I need to remind you of your other appointments! We’re already late!” she stated.</p>
<p>She watched as he moved quickly outside, without even greeting. She rushed behind him on the elevator to the ground floor.</p>
<p>“I’ve told you to go meet Coulson!” he said between his teeth.</p>
<p>“There was a problem” she said, in panic. “The energy was shut down while I was copying. I still have the pen drive but now he’ll know what we were up to…”</p>
<p>She saw him turning into a marble statue while he was seriously considering his different options.</p>
<p>“Plan B” he then said. Then when they were arriving at the ground floor he quickly looked at her and added: “Peps, I love you…”</p>
<p>“What- ?” she started, but Tony was already rushing outside the elevator.</p>
<p>And a young man was already approaching her and saying in a very confidential tone: “Hello Virginia! It’s so nice to see you again! I’m Phil from college, do you remember me?”</p>
<p>She stumbled for a while, then she reacted: “Oh Phil! It’s so good to see you! You haven’t changed at all!”</p>
<p>“Well Potts, I see you’ve found an old friend!” Tony intervened already some feet from them. “Why don’t you buy her a dinner, Phil by? She’s partial to Italian!”</p>
<p>And he jumped on his car and run away.</p>
<p>Coulson has taken her arm in arm and she was gently guiding her outside while talking about former college professors and club she very well remembered to have been part in. If she hasn’t known the trick, she would have really believed that the guy was a former student she has forgotten about.</p>
<p>He continued to talk until they were near a black car which was parked nearby.</p>
<p>He opened the back door and invited her in. He quickly followed by her side.</p>
<p>“What happened?” she heard a female voice from the driver side while turning the engine on and moving away.</p>
<p>“Stark sent us to Italian” Coulson summed up.</p>
<p>“Shit!” the woman screwed. “Plan B!”</p>
<p>“What’s plan B?” Pepper asked. “Where’s Tony?”</p>
<p>After a moment of silence, Coulson explained: “Mr. Stark is going back to Malibu with his jet tonight. Mr. Hogan will pick him up at the airport and drive him home. You will join him tomorrow afternoon like always; at dinnertime two of our agents will pick you up with a cover and secure you at your home. He will stay in his lab the whole day, probably, to perfect a device he needed for the night, while Mr. Stane joined him. Mr. Hogan will know nothing about the plan and go away at 9 PM as always and come back at 9 AM. If everything goes as planned, Mr. Stark will still be with Mr. Stane for the whole morning. That will give us time to block his contacts in New York, Malibu and Kabul. Don’t worry about colonel Rhodes: we’re securing him now with a good excuse! He’ll be there when everything is over.”</p>
<p>She was completely astonished: so this was the plan since the beginning if she had failed to collect the data.</p>
<p>“Don’t be too harsh on yourself, Potts!” the woman in the driving sit said. “Stark knew you had a good 65% to fail, according to his calculation… but in any case if you brought the key with you we still manage to recover some data… and the key has put a virus inside the system as well. Stark would be able to access it through a wireless connection between his phone and Stane’s one. He only needs both phones to be near and Stane to transmit to him a file. That’s how he’ll lure him in!”</p>
<p>Pepper’s mind was trying to process all the information.</p>
<p>And one thing became immediately clear to her: Tony would have met Obadiah at his home tomorrow night.</p>
<p>Alone.</p>
<p>After he had insulted him openly and publicly.</p>
<p>After she had attempted to access his files…</p>
<p>There were no doubt of what would have happened! And that was simply unacceptable!</p>
<p>“Wait!” she exclaimed aloud. “We can’t simply let Tony giving himself to that monster! He was going to…” the word ‘rape’ died on her lips, but she was pretty sure the others got it.</p>
<p>Nobody answered for a while.</p>
<p>“This is Stark’s plan” Coulson said. “We proposed alternative solutions and our Boss, like you, was not happy at all at the perspectives of what could happen to Mr. Stark tomorrow night. But he persuaded us it’s our best chance to obtain what we need: full proof and maybe also a direct testimony on Stane’s activities. Which included not only psychological and physical violence against Mr. Stark and many other boys and girls across his life, but international illegal weapon market, and terrorism. The last ones are obviously what SHIELD is interested in the most! That and the Hydra agents infiltrated at the top ranks of the Government, if what Stark and miss Van Dyne told us last time is true! But we already suspected it through Stark senior and Mr. Pym! In exchange, Stark Industries will maintain its contract with the Army and Mr. Stark will receive all his documents back, without the risk of blackmailing by other subjects. Also the role of Mr. Stark in dismantling the organization will be publically recognized!”</p>
<p>“They’ll give him a medal for sure!” the woman scoffed.</p>
<p>They have reached the basement of big building, and the woman has parked on what seemed a private spot.</p>
<p> She and Coulson were already off the car, and the woman has come to open her door.</p>
<p>She was smiling at her: “By the way, it’s nice to see you again, Potts!”</p>
<p>She studied her for a moment before connecting her face to a past memory: she had cut her hair, but she was the same girl who has kicked the dumbass homophobe in the guts two days before the end of their internship.</p>
<p>“Maria!” Pepper exclaimed. “I- when- Oh, yes! You work for SHIELD as well!”</p>
<p>“She didn’t just worked for SHIELD! Hill is my right-hand woman and one of my best senior officer, including Mr. Coulson here!”</p>
<p>The voice came from a spot in the dark, from which a black man in a long trench emerged. Pepper could only tell that he looked threating, especially because he had one eye covered with a black patch.</p>
<p>“Miss Potts, my name is Nick Fury, and I am the director of SHIELD!” the man was introducing himself, by offering her his right hand.</p>
<p>She shook it still a bit overwhelmed by everything.</p>
<p>He seemed to understand her feelings: “I know you have many questions, and that it has been a tough day, but I’ll promise you that Agent Coulson here will provide you all the answers you want while he was escorting you to your dinner and then back to a secure room. You allegedly spent the night together, and tomorrow morning he will drive you to your plane to Malibu. One of our agent will be with you the whole time, so you don’t have to worry!”</p>
<p>“I’m not worry for myself!” she replied. “What about Tony? He’s going to deal with that <em>monster</em> alone! He’s going to offer himself like a sacrificial lamb just for having some stupid data!”</p>
<p>“We are talking about international traffic of deathly weapons, Potts! Jericho-like weapons!” Maria said. “If some of Stane’s associates had enough of Stark’s toys they could blow up the entire West Coast. You see that at work!”</p>
<p>“I don’t give a fuck of the West Coast!” she insisted, on the verge of hysteria. “I need to protect Tony! He can’t do that… not again…”</p>
<p>She felt sick, like everything was turning around her too quickly.</p>
<p>Maria was by her side, and invited her to take a sit again in the car.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Miss Potts, but that will probably be our only chance to stop not only Mr. Stane but the whole international gang he’s part in!” Fury was saying. “Do you know anything about the Hydra or the Ten Rings?”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “No, never heard of… Hydra yes… maybe, I….” she felt exhausted.</p>
<p>“I know the feeling, but listen: this has been a long-term fight against Stane and his associates. And Stane was just one pawn of the scheme. A key one, maybe the Queen as Stark called him, but the main one is still behind the curtains. And we need to get him or everything will be for nothing!”</p>
<p>“Let me explain better, Potts” Hill jumped in. “Stark senior was already in contact with Director Fury here. They should have met through Jarvis… not the AI but the real man. But then something went terribly wrong, and we lost many agents, together with Stark senior and his wife Maria. And the Stark boy disappeared. When he came back it seemed that he was playing with Stane since he has nominated him vice-CEO and he has given him proofs to destroy some of his old opponents. But in reality Tony Stark and his butler Jarvis were already collecting some proofs as Stark senior has done before… But then they made a mistake, and Jarvis got killed!”</p>
<p>“I've tried to approach Stark at Jarvis’s funeral” Fury recalled with a low tone. “But it was too early, and Stark was too wasted… for a while we thought to have lost him, that he has surrendered and that the game was over. And maybe for a while that was true… That was why I send Hill directly inside the Stark Industries. She suspected something was going on, and that confirmed what one of Stark’s engineer, a Yinsen something, has told us when she asked for political refuge. And when you two, miss Potts, moved to Malibu, it was clear that Mr. Stark was up at something. So we tried to contact him again… But Mr. Stane turned suspicious and attempted at your bodyguard’s life. Stark was terrified, as he was when Stane killed Jarvis… yes, Miss Potts, we have proof he ordered the homicide. So we needed to gain Stark’s trust this time. That was why we sent Miss Van Dyne, the daughter of his old Professor Hank Pym, with proofs that both Pym and Yinsen were alive and in our custody. That persuaded Stark to collaborate with us at SHIELD… or at least with the ones here!”</p>
<p>“But Stark had a priority and that was you!” Hill continued. “He kept saying that he needed to ‘save his Queen’. That was the reason of his scene with you: keeping you out of Stane’s radar! In the meanwhile he was talking with us through me, Hope van Dyne, Coulson, and other agents. We figured out a plan… a complicated one, especially when we found out the main pawn in Stane’s hands! And the great mastermind behind all this…”</p>
<p>“Tony told me some secretaries…” Pepper mumbled, too astonished by these revelations.</p>
<p>The three agents looked at each other.</p>
<p>“He told you about him, Potts?” Hill asked for confirmation.</p>
<p>“He babbled something… but I didn’t get it…" she was quite confused now. "The only think I know is that now I am here with three SHIELD agents and he is alone!”</p>
<p>“I am not enthusiast with this plan myself, miss Potts!” Fury said. “I don’t like to bet on Artificial Intelligence or to risk my men or women’s lives! And we both know Stark is playing a very dangerous game with a crazy man! But he is the genius who has devised not only the Jericho, but also the ways to enter his own defensive system and to dismantle an international organization… and I am afraid I have no better choices but to trust him!”</p>
<p>She was overcome.</p>
<p>“I only hope this wouldn’t cost his life!” she murmured. “You don’t know Obadiah Stane and what is able to do…”</p>
<p>“Well, Miss Potts, I dare to say we have enough information to…”</p>
<p>“No, you don’t!” she replied, standing again to front Fury. “You may know his criminal profile, but you don’t know him as the manipulative psychopath he is or you wouldn’t call him “crazy”. Stane is very rational in his persecution: he took his time to lure his victims into his webs, and then he plays with them a long-term game until he completely subdue them to his will. He used violence systematically and as a mean of coercion, he didn’t go randomly violent. It’s dangerous, director, in the serial-killer kind of dangerous! And Tony has been in his hands for the majority of his life, since he was still underage and before his parents’ death! He might think to control him, but Stane will always find a way to break him! And he will: he will break and destroy him completely! So no matter the win, I’ll lose Tony forever!”</p>
<p>Fury was studying her with intensity.</p>
<p>“You were right, Hill, she is really exceptional!” he said to her vice.</p>
<p>Hill smiled at her and added: “I’ve recommended you as an analyst for SHIELD, but Stark had enrolled you first! All considered, it’d be better this way: after his butler Jarvis died, Stark couldn’t have survived without you. And you gave him a reason to finally free himself from Stane’s webs!”</p>
<p>“Are you saying that he willingly made up this plan?” Pepper asked, still not fully persuaded.</p>
<p>She knew Tony was the one always talking about ‘gambits’ but she also knew he wanted to live with her, he has made plans for them being together. So why was he up to all of this?</p>
<p>“You have to understand him, Potts” Hill was saying, like she was reading her mind. “The guy was stubborn. We’ve tried many times with him, and he has always run back, too scared of putting his friends in danger. Director Fury here thought that the guy was a lost cause, but then I saw you and him were kind of dating, and from his psychological profile we knew that Stark was over-caring for the few ones closed to him. And certainly he cares about you! So we tried again a contact, and this time he said yes… I’m quite sure he had checked on us, especially after what he has found when his butler has been killed! He didn’t know who to trust, and I don’t blame him… But when he was reassured, he he has proposed us an elaborate game of chess made of moves and countermoves. He was obviously thinking about it for a long time, but you gave him the occasion to go on. He did all of this to protect you, and to give both of you a possible future together! So don’t be afraid: he has designed this plan to be able to live after that not to die trying!”</p>
<p>Pepper felt the tears in her eyes without any possibility of controlling them.</p>
<p>“That damn stubborn idiot!” she murmured.</p>
<p>Fury passed her a tissue and nodded in comprehension.</p>
<p>“Miss Potts, I can perfectly understand your feelings right now” he said, “but if we want this crazy plan of Stark to succeed, everyone needs to play his part, for how painful it might be. So I’ll need to know if you’re ready to do what it has to be done in the following two days!”</p>
<p>“What if I say no?”</p>
<p>“Well, in that case, Hill and Coulson will have to secure you in one of our refuge and to take you out until it was over. This way you won’t be complicit in a rape crime, but you can’t help Mr. Stark if he needed. Please consider, that he explicitly wanted to involve you in this final part of the plan, even against our advice, because he has full trust in you!”</p>
<p>She sighed.</p>
<p>“All right, Director Fury! Tell me what I’m supposed to do!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I was really happy of the alliances created in this chapter... and I hope you've enjoyed them.<br/>Little spoiler for the next episodes of the series: the reason why Tony is scared by fireworks will become evident in the story "The golden boy/part 2", which followed this one (I've already written down everything but I'm re-checking them constantly).</p>
<p>How will the game go? And, most of all, will the Queen manage to protect her Tony despite his sacrifice?</p>
<p>Please, leave a comment if you like :D</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The White Queen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>An accurate plan based on a sacrifice risks to be destroyed by unknown free variables... or what happened after that fatal night told in "The King of Chess".</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Last chapter of this part of series! Some of the events referred to here are told in the first two parts of the series "The Loyal Man" and "The King of Chess", and they will take back in the last fic of the series "The final game" (see the intro to the series).</p><p>Trigger warning: overt mention of an attempted suicide and of guns!</p><p>I wish to thank everyone who commented or left kudos: it means a lot!<br/>As always, apologies for language mistakes!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The dinner with Coulson was a very nice experience, all things considered, even if they keep chatting on the verge of their swords.</p><p>The agent had picked up a famous Italian restaurant with a fantastic view on NY landscape, and he seemed very competent on the selection of food and wine.</p><p>“Do you came here often, Phil?” she asked. They’ve agreed on the use of proper name like it was expected from a couple of old college mate and possible dates.</p><p>“I used to come here with a friend” he replied. “She is a cellist at the NY orchestra, and unfortunately we don’t have much time together.”</p><p>“It must be frustrating…”</p><p>“Not more than playing the nanny for a rich guy at the edge of an empire!” he mocked her a bit. “But tell me, Virginia: how did you get this job? Back in college you had other ambitions, if I remember correctly.”</p><p>“Probably you’d remember that my main ambition was having enough money to survive without having to do three different jobs at the same time, like I did back on campus!” she teased him a bit. He did his homework, but he left off some details. “But to answer to your question with honesty, I simply don’t know how it happened. I was doing an internship after college, and my only hope was to have a final letter of reference for some small office in Manhattan. Then one day I made a comment on coffee blend and the Stark’s machines who burnt the grains, and Mr. Stark apparently took that as a sign. He’s very fond of coffee!”</p><p>“Well, I’ve heard it’s not the only beverage he’s fond of…”</p><p>She took a sip of a wine, a good red Bonarda directly imported from Italy.</p><p>“If you’re referring to his alcohol issues, Phil, I can only say that with Mr. Stark there’s usually something more behind the surface” and she glanced him a look of warning.</p><p>He got the hint and quickly changed the subject into a different and more general topic like art and theatre, where they found a common agreement on their admiration for the French pieces of Ionesco.</p><p>After dinner, he escorted her to a small walk around, like it was expected from a flirting couple, also buying her a red rose. He dare to ask for a kiss, and she played along even if he remained extremely professional. She faked a laugh and a bit of emotion when he proposed her to spend the night together to remember the good old times.</p><p>Only when they arrived inside an hotel room, he activated a strange mechanism at the four corner of the bedroom, and then he visibly relaxed.</p><p>“Room is secured now, miss Potts!” he said. “I’m afraid we have to pass the night together, but no problem: I’ll sleep on the floor as planned.”</p><p>“Nonsense!” she opposed. “I’m perfectly fine in you sleeping next to me, if you wish to.”</p><p>“Honestly I need a larger personal space. I hope you’re not offended!”</p><p>She shook her head with a small laugh. “Not as much as your back in the morning…”</p><p>“I’m used to it, don’t worry. And for now, I’ll look away why you remove your clothes and use the toilet. I’m afraid we couldn’t provide you a change.”</p><p>“No problem… may I still call you Phil?”</p><p>“Well, it’s my name.”</p><p>He turned back only when she confirmed to be safely under the coverts.</p><p>“If you want to sleep, I’ll turn off the lights now, Miss Potts. Still, I supposed you have questions we couldn’t discuss at the restaurant.”</p><p>She nodded. “Could you tell me if the data I’ve provided with that pen drive have been useful?”</p><p>“Unfortunately I can’t tell now: those data are being processed by our best analysts at SHIELD, including your friend Hill, but we can say they won’t be enough. So if you’re next question would have been if we can cut off this plan, I’m afraid but the answer will still be no.”</p><p>Pepper sighed: she was expecting this but still it hurt. “Next question: what did you give Tony to make him trust you? He’s extremely suspicious of everyone! And I’m not sure, but this must be related to what happened to Jarvis… the real one, I mean!”</p><p>“Have you ever heard him mentioning a professor Pym from his time at MIT?” Coulson asked back.</p><p>“No, not that I remember…”</p><p>“Let’s say that he was the old acquaintance Mr. Stark trusted… and he persuaded him to trust us as well!”</p><p>“And what Tony give you to have <em>you</em> trust him? You could have assumed he was Stane’s accomplice, even worse since he is the one creating the weapons.”</p><p>“No, we never believed Stark junior had something to do with terrorism and illegal market but we knew he’s responsible only of the creative part, while Stane takes care of the selling. Yes, our Boss suspected he could be involved somehow, especially after Jarvis’s death. That complicated things… As you may know, Mr. Stark has been under Stane’s caring since he was 16, and that there were several episodes of reported violence made under cover. And that he was scheduled with mental problems. Most of all, through time Mr. Stark was regularly trying to reveal something under the surface but Stane’s friends were always able to push him back. When we got our hands on one of Stane’s associates in Gulmira he told us many things, including their source of weaponry and the drugs that he personally regularly furnished to Mr. Stane for keeping the ‘golden boy’, as they called him, under control.”</p><p>“Are you telling me Tony was trying to free himself since he was a boy?”</p><p>“According to our reconstruction, for sure since when he was 19. And not only Stark junior, but also Stark senior had realized there was something dirt on his vice-CEO’s part, and that got him and his wife both killed. But as for the actual Mr. Stark, he had no chance alone: Mr. Stane has contacts with the heads of several international criminal organizations, including the Hydra, the AIM, and the already mentioned Ten Rings… and a head figure in the Government I’m not authorized to talk about for now. I hope you understand and accept my apologies, Miss Potts.”</p><p>Pepper felt her head spinning: they’ve been indeed quite stupid and naïve in believing to manage to take down a man like this, but who knew?</p><p>Wait! Tony knew!</p><p>And he had told her that one day he would have explained… he would have a lot to explain!</p><p>“Don’t blame him or yourself, Miss Potts” Coulson said with kindness. “You both did your best, and Mr. Stark turns out to be an excellent chess player, the one capable to predict every possible scenarios. But you have still a long way to go. I suggest you take some sleep now, because the next two days will be difficult!”</p><p>“May I ask you just one more thing?”</p><p>“Of course, Miss Potts.”</p><p>“That violoncellist you were talking at dinner… is she real or you made up for the occasion?”</p><p>His smile was more sincere this time. “Her name’s Hyu Chin Ho, and she played for the NY Opera House. I hope you might meet sooner or later.”</p><p>_____________________________________________________________________</p><p>The day after, Coulson drove her to the airport where she had a reservation for a very early flight to Malibu. He greeted her goodbye with a chaste kiss on the lips, and he was gone.</p><p>She was sitting comfortably in her first class place with window view when a young woman with a head of red hair sat next to her. She really was red-haired if compared to Pepper which appeared more ginger. The stranger minded her business until they were on cruise, then turned towards her with the excuse of seeing the landscape.</p><p>“Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed in a weird accent. “You are famous!”</p><p>Pepper blushed and hoped nobody was listening, even if the flight was half-empty, and they were the only two people in first class.</p><p>“If be famous you meant that I work for a famous boss, you’re right, Miss…?”</p><p>“Romanov, Natasha Romanov!” the other girl introduced herself. “And I might know your Boss, miss Potts!”</p><p>Pepper deeply hoped she wasn’t one of the many one-night performance of Tony or a scandal journalist… or both!</p><p>“Well, it might be said that Tony Stark knows many people…” she tried.</p><p>“Yes!” the other insisted, before adding: “And I heard he’s also partial to Italian…”</p><p>Pepper looked towards her and noticed the look in her eyes. She wasn’t a nuisance or an issue, but the SHIELD agent Coulson has promised. She needed to play along.</p><p>“Well, yes. Mr. Stark has always expensive tastes if he needs to impress people” she replied with a relaxed smile. “But you tell me, miss Romanov, why such curiosity for Mr. Stark’s taste on food?”</p><p>Her smile was more like a complicit grin. “Well, miss Potts, I confess that I was hoping to have a talk with you or your Boss sooner or later for a strategic partnership. I represent a company of futuristic restaurants who wanted to recreate a sci-fi environment for his clients. Everything is from low-middle class cheeseburgers served by robots, to top rich clients with private space capsules to have dinner in. We were hoping that Mr. Stark would be interested in the high-tech side of the creation… his robotic friends are quite famous!”</p><p>They went on chatting like that was a normal business meeting. Under Romanov’s suggestion, they set an appointment late that evening in a restaurant not far from Pepper’s home in the city centre. Furthermore, they pre-scheduled an appointment with Mr. Stark for the afternoon of the day after. They would have met together and then went to Mr. Stark’s house in Malibu, also to meet his robots, if Mr. Stark accepted the partnership, but Pepper looked confident.</p><p>“It would be fun indeed” she thought. “I should propose it to Tony when this mess will be over! And Dummy could be the boss of the all the robots…”</p><p>From the airport she took a taxi directly to Tony’s house, where she found Happy who was calmly cleaning the living room. She has told him he doesn’t need to do it, but he insisted that he could do that when Boss was in the lab, since he has nothing else to do. For a moment she felt a bit sorry for that honest man, who did nothing wrong in his life and he has been thrown in the middle of the fire without even acknowledging what was happening. She had told him to inform her of Mr. Stane’s movements and by some of his observations and discourses she felt he knew more than what he told: he just seemed to be familiar with similar situation, but Pepper hasn’t found anything suspicious from his personal records.</p><p>“Boss is in his lab” Happy told her.</p><p>“Have you seen him today?”</p><p>“Yes, Miss. We had breakfast together and he was chatting of a new propulsion system he was creating. I don’t know what he was referring to, but it’s like he wanted to make people fly in a metal suit! It seems funny…”</p><p>Despite the situation, she had to laugh. “So Tony…” she thought.</p><p>They were in the middle of a plan to turn down a mob boss and all his associates, and he was thinking of metal suits and flying people. But, she also considered, maybe his fantasy and capacity of focusing on different things at the same time has saved him for all this time.</p><p>She found him in the lab: the music was off this time and he was indeed working on a fly propulsion while mumbling a song. She felt a pain in her heart by recognizing the song: it was the one he always mumbled when he was scared. The same one she has heard Jarvis playing for him when he was in bed, allegedly sick.</p><p>He gasped when she moved closer, as if he hadn’t noticed that she was there (and maybe he truly hadn’t, since he appeared very focus on not falling apart).</p><p>“Good morning, Sunshine!” he greeted her, but his smile was really fake. His eyes told his dread. “Did you have a nice night with your Coulson boy? How is he in bed?”</p><p>She played the offense part. “Mr. Stark, I seriously doubt that this is anything of your business anymore! And as for the night, it was indeed a pleasant evening… once I didn’t have in a while, thank you!”</p><p>That was gratuitous and she noticed he felt a bit hurt. “Damn, Tony! I’m acting!” she thought.</p><p>Despite everything, Tony would never be a good actor: he was always too involved with his parts, maybe because he constantly played a different part of himself.</p><p>“Coming to business, I’ve had an interesting proposal coming from a young company working in food business. They were interested in your robots…”</p><p>“I don’t sell my robots!” he immediately replied.</p><p>“Well, not your robots here, Mr. Stark, but maybe new ones you might create. You see, this girl I’ve spoken with is particularly partial to Italian.”</p><p>She noticed that he got the hint. “About time for a genius!” she thought, but he must be terrified for what’s coming next.</p><p>“This is nonsense…” she thought.</p><p>She was resisting the impulse to hug him and drag him away, only because she knew that it was not what he wanted: he has designed all this since he was 16, or maybe even before, and now he had to play the final act. And she couldn’t ruin everything because she… well, yes, because she loved him!</p><p>“You must talk with that girl, then” he was saying to her. “Tell her I’m interested and we can talk about this… what about tomorrow afternoon? Come here with her after lunch, so I’ll show her some prototypes… hey, Dummy! Would you like to be on Masterchef?”</p><p>The old robot he designed as a boy came closer and touched him on the hair, in what resembled a very human attempt at ruffling it. The results was obviously that it pulled his hair and hurt him, but he joked about it. He kept playing with Dummy for a while, and also talked to her about different business activities and technical problems that could emerge in a robotic restaurant.</p><p>She noticed that he was clearly distracting himself, but while the time was running by his eyes became sad and he randomly bite his lips. He has started again to mumble his song.</p><p>It was around 7 PM when Pepper’s phone rang and Miss Romanov reminded her of their appointment. She faked enthusiasm while in reality she didn’t want to leave.</p><p>“It seems it’s time for you to go now!” he said with a fake smile. “But, Potts, before you go, could you please take this as an early Christmas present? I hope it’s proper enough from one Boss to his assistant…”</p><p>And he passed her a bad-wrapped package.</p><p>“What’s inside?” she asked doubtful, slightly noting that it was July.</p><p>“You’ll see…” he smiled.</p><p>He was dismissing her, and she went away with a normal “Goodbye, Mr. Stark”.</p><p>She cried all the way down to the centre, where she got changed and pretended again to be a normal assistant while meeting Miss Romanov at a fancy restaurant.</p><p>The girl wasn’t alone, and he introduced her partner as Mr. Clint Barton, the actual owner of the building where they were thinking on putting the futuristic restaurant. If Romanov was a really good actress, Mr. Barton smelled like an agent from miles away: he has also the earphone still in his ear.</p><p>“Mr. Barton is deaf on that ear” Miss Romanov explained, noticing her look.</p><p>“Oh! Apologies for my gross manner!” Pepper blushed.</p><p>“No need to, miss Potts!” Barton replied. “I’ve lost one of my ear but my sight is very good.”</p><p>That could seem nonsense in a normal conversation, but she got the point: Barton would have been her guardian through the night. It would have appeared weird if she had passed the night with a different man, and Coulson was probably needed at SHIELD to carry on the final parts of the plan, since they needed to arrest all the members of Stane’s network in one single stroke.</p><p>They chit-chatted for the convenient amount of time. Actually, Pepper and Miss Romanov (“Call me Natasha, please!”) have moved from business to more personal discourses, always in the matter of interests and cultural activities. She couldn’t be sure everything the agent was telling her was true, because she was really a professional liar… and she had passed her last years with one!</p><p>But Tony looked like a child in front of agent Romanov!</p><p>They set an appointment for the following afternoon at 3 PM: they’d meet here and then they’d move to Mr. Stark’s house to set the details. Pepper realized that in that way they would have two agents by their side, and they would have had Happy with them as well.</p><p>The plan, thus, was to remain closed in their house-fortress with their watchdogs until SHIELD has signaled that the nightmare was over. And if something went wrong and Stane managed to escape, the agents would have escorted them to a safe shelter.</p><p>She went home followed by their looks: she was sure they were keeping watching her from distance, maybe from one of the nearby buildings.</p><p>She took a hot shower, and then she watched a bit of TV on the couch still in her white bathrobe. There was when she remembered that she had spying cameras on her house as well. She felt naked and violated and she needed to drink a big glass of wine she had in the pantry to calm her nerves.</p><p>It was long past midnight when she finally decided to go back in the bedroom, take out the outfit for tomorrow and catch some sleep. On the side of the bed, however, she noticed the small wrapped package Tony has given her that afternoon. She had left it there before going out for dinner, and she hasn’t opened it yet.</p><p>There was a not on the package that made her heart jumped in her chest:</p><p>“<em>Just in case you need something to remember me… Forever yours, Tony</em>”</p><p>She opened it frantically and found the mug, that old red mug with the golden writing “Genius” and the up arrow: she had bought it for ‘Mr. Stark’ to thank him for the help, without knowing she had already been enrolled as his personal assistant. Then the mug broke when Stane had raped Tony in his own apartment and Pepper had helped him hiding downstairs with her. She remembered that Tony had insisted on keeping the mug pieces, but she had never known he had repaired it with what really seemed gold. He had talked once about a Japanese technique for repairing broken things with something precious to show their value, but she couldn’t believe he has repaired a 99-cents mug with true gold. And now he has gifted it back to her.</p><p>“<em>Just in case</em>” he has written by hand.</p><p>She collapsed on the bed, crying.</p><p>It was 1 AM and she had a clear vision of what it was possibly happening at his house… their house!</p><p>She had bought it for Tony to escape his monster, and for a moment she had hoped that house could be turn in their loving nest. But now it was impossible: however that night would end, they could never be happy in the Malibu house anymore.</p><p>_____________________________________________________________</p><p>She had cried herself to sleep at something around 2 or maybe 3 in the morning, she couldn’t tell. She thought to have the full morning to recover, since the plan was to meet with the two SHIELD agents at 3 PM.</p><p>Thus, she woke up in great alarm when Jarvis’s voice called her on her phone: the AI’s voice sounded in dread alarm.</p><p>“Miss Potts! Miss Potts! Please, wake up! You need to go to Mr. Stark! It went bad! He’s hurt! He’s bleeding! Please, Miss Potts, you have to save him!”</p><p>She jumped off the bed without even caring to watch the hour or think about the plan: everything she needed to know was that Tony was hurt and bleeding, probably left to die but that freaking monster! She put the first pair of jeans and shirts she found, grab her purse and only check to have her gun still in, before taking her car keys and rushing on the elevator down to the private parking.</p><p>She turned on the engine and noticed it was few minutes before 7 AM.</p><p>She didn’t like to drive, and especially not at high speed but now she rushed like a storm.</p><p>“Jarvis, talked to me!” she called aloud. She didn’t mind someone else could be hearing, she didn’t mind that was not the plan: all that minds to her was that Tony was hurt and bleeding. “It went bad” Jarvis had said together with “You have to save him!”</p><p>Damn idiots! She had told them it was not a good idea, it was too risky!</p><p>“Miss Potts, I can say for sure but Mr. Stark is badly hurt everywhere! It had happened in the lab! It was not planned! He had a bleeding cut on his arm, Mr. Hogan is fixing it. But he can’t stand or walk… he’s in great pain! And his mind… he didn’t know where he is…”</p><p>He sounded really broken, like he was living an ever-lasting pain his true living self has experienced a lifetime ago. And maybe that was true: Jarvis the AI as the memories of Jarvis the man! All of his memories!</p><p>She accelerated even more, not minding the eventual penalties she could catch around the road: at a normal pace and without traffic like this early in the morning her house was about 40 minutes from Tony’s one. She arrived there 25 minutes later, by parking the car on a private spot not to close to the house (her instinct’s suggestion) and covering the rest of the distance running.</p><p>She rushed in the house calling out loud for Tony and for a moment she was astonished to hear Happy’s voice coming from their bedroom.</p><p>“He’s here, miss Potts!” he was calling her.</p><p>Her brain was calculating many different hypothesis on why Happy was there so early in the morning, but now all that matters was Tony. And for what she saw he was in a really bad shape, even worse than when he found him hiding in his own wardrobe. He was outmatched and maybe pissed to find her here, and insisted to be able to clean himself in the shower.</p><p>And while he was hiding in the toilet, she confronted Happy, scared by the possibility he had been fooled them this whole time: behind the innocent air could hide a vicious ally of Obadiah Stane?</p><p>Instead, Happy’s answer warmed her heart and on the same time made her thinking on the different variables that could go wrong in a plan. Because Happy had come there because it was a hot day, and he had awaken early and found out he had no coffee at home… so he went there early to use his Boss’s huge coffee storage and take a bath in the Jacuzzi. It was such an innocent statement, and he did so blushing, like a kid that has been surprised stealing the jam.</p><p>She wanted to laugh but also to slap him, because with this he might have doomed the whole plan.</p><p>Although there was one thing that didn’t fit, and that was Jarvis!</p><p>Jarvis knew about the plan… as far as she knew, it took Tony a bit of insistence to persuade Fury that Jarvis was a living thing that could think on his own and he was the only one that could help them from the inside.</p><p>So why Jarvis has called her to come here? Just because Tony was hurt? But Happy, the free uncontrolled variable, was already there and could have attended at his needs. Had Jarvis been hacked?</p><p>That was what she asked Tony, by whispering in his ear when he went out of the toilet but he shook his head. He didn’t know why Jarvis had acted that way either. But he couldn’t talked too much though and it was pretty clear why: he has signs of his neck and his throat must have been a bit damaged by the pressure. And he has been drugged... And he had difficulties in walking: did he have an internal bleeding? They needed to check him, to call a doctor, to call the SHIELD and cut this nonsense off!</p><p>“No, keep going!” he murmured her. “He’d be back… careful… game still on… just a few more hours…”</p><p>He almost fainted in bed.</p><p>She managed to give something to drink, with a bit of tranquillizer in it, but only a bit because Stane must have drugged him again, and Tony had already vomited it: he had allergies on several components by now and she couldn’t risk an anaphylactic shock.</p><p>She sealed the room with Tony in it, by ordering Jarvis not to open it for any reasons. Then she went down to the lab with Happy by her side, by thinking that the man would have deserved a series of therapy sessions if they emerged from it alive.</p><p>They found the mess and for Pepper it was like living again the same scene in Tony’s apartment: he must have fight badly this time, and this must have pissed Stane off and drove him to act out of plan. She had seen a bag of sex toys still in the living room, so he didn’t use them… whatever he did to him, though, he hurt him a lot more!</p><p>“I’ll made him pay for this as well!” she thought to herself.</p><p>But now she needs to finish the job on Tony’s behalf.</p><p>She tried to remember what Coulson had told her: the plan was that Tony would have connected Stane’s phone to his own and downloaded the access codes or use it as a Troy horse to enter Stane’s private line the moment he would have used to send Tony blackmailing pictures or movies of that night, especially if he was live-streaming the event (a thing probably he used to giving how sure Tony was on that point).</p><p>So now the problem was to find Tony’s phone and secured it before Stane could erase it as he usually did. Did he do that already? It seems unlikely, but who knows… they had had bad luck before, even if she didn’t believe in luck!</p><p>“Miss Potts, come here!” Happy was calling her.</p><p>He has found Tony’s underwear and, with her sum disgust, a piece of cigar near the car.</p><p>She passed her fingers on the car, one of Tony’s favorite model; she saw his fingerprints on the windows, the extreme efforts to free himself… he must have been desperate…</p><p>She felt tears in her eyes as well as a furious rage.</p><p>And her rage mounted when she discovered that Tony had turn Jarvis down the whole time: he must have had his reasons, maybe to let him work better undercover without risking an hacking, but this way he had been completely alone against that monster! Even his friendly robots have been turned down!</p><p>She frowned inside at the thought but now she had another problem: Happy. The poor man had been already involved in a car accident and risked his life. He must stayed out of all this, at cost of lying to him.</p><p>She was quite surprise, then, when Happy firmly opposed to the lie she was trying to make him follow: he was really fond of his Boss and wanted to protect him! And she felt a stupid for not having believed the guy, who was such a good person at heart, maybe the only good person she had found in all her life.</p><p>She’d like to explain to him everything now, to told him the plan, and what they needed to do right now.</p><p>But once again things get out of hand, because Jarvis almost screamed that Mr. Stane has arrived back at their door. She didn’t expect him so soon! She thought to have more time at disposal, maybe to call SHIELD agents or to prepare a strategy.</p><p>“Think, Potts, think!” she imposed to herself, while Happy wanted to simply shot the man.</p><p>Not that wasn’t a solution, but there were still those documents Stane had against Tony: he could ruin him even when death, and they couldn’t afford it, not after everything Tony went through. And there were also Stane’s associated around the globe: SHIELD needed time to get them all, and they needed to get them all if they really wanted this to over!</p><p>She calmed their bodyguard down, and made up a quick plan, a stupid plan based on what Stane himself made Tony playing: pretending!</p><p>So when Obadiah Stane opened the door whistling, this time his astonishment was real, when he found Miss Potts and Mr. Hogan calmly chatting in the living room, not far from the main entrance of the lab.</p><p>Pepper reminded herself that it was weird that their bodyguard was shoeless, but nevertheless Happy had his gun by his side. That was not a usual thing in normal days, so Pepper was sure Stane would notice it and suspect that there was something going on. Something also related to her presence there when she was allegedly supposed to be out of town till the afternoon.</p><p>“Miss Potts, my dear!” he greeted her. He recovered quick, but she noted how he glanced everywhere, from the bag with the sex toys still on the floor, to them and then to the closed door of the bedroom.</p><p>“Is the golden boy still sleeping?” he asked, sounding nonchalantly.</p><p>She nodded to Happy who moved right in front of Tony’s door, while she replied: “As you might notice, Mr. Stane, it’s a bit early in the morning for Tony to be awake. However, please, take a sit. Tony had insisted that you take a coffee.”</p><p>She was expecting him to react violently but instead he smiled at her and followed her suggestion, by posing the tray of pastries he was carrying on the small table in the living room and spreading himself on the couch. Pepper nodded again to Happy who didn’t lose sight of him, while she prepared two cups of coffees.</p><p>“American one?” Stane asked, perplexed when she put the mugs on the table, without risking passing him one. “I thought you were partial on Italian, miss Potts!”</p><p>She frowned: did he know the code? Was he spying on them the whole time? Were Romanov and Barton double agents working not only for SHIELD but also for Hydra or someone else? Or… her mind remembered their first private encounter and how he had served her an Italian coffee. Maybe, for once, that line was just a coincidence.</p><p>She had to believe in it.</p><p>“It’s way better if Tony doesn’t drink Italian coffee: it’s too strong for him and he usually drinks too much!” she answered then.</p><p>“Tony eh? Not Mr. Stark?” he asked, his shark smile on.</p><p>“Screw you, Potts!” she swore at herself. She managed to blush and replied a humble: “Apologies, Mr. Stane. I should have said “Mr. Stark”. Such levels of intimacy are not proper… not anymore at least!”</p><p>He seemed giggling at her answer. “So, I imagine you’re looking for another position” he said. “It wouldn’t be easy to work with <em>Tony</em> after the end of a romantic love story… the billionaire and the secretary, miss Potts, what a cliché!”</p><p>“Indeed, Mr. Stane…” she said, faking to blush. “Stupid damn sadistic pork! I’ll cave your eyes with a spoon!” she was thinking.</p><p>“Well, as a matter of fact” he was following, “I may have a position open as my personal secretary. You proved your qualities… in different fields and <em>positions</em>, I have to say. You’ll be more than adapt to <em>bend over</em> the job!”</p><p>The implicit was not so implicit, and Pepper frowned at disgust. She was trying to smile and not to jump at his throat (”Stick to the plan, Potts!” she was telling herself),</p><p>Then he crossed his legs, and he made evident he was carrying a small gun on his right leg.</p><p>“What now?” Pepper thought.</p><p>A second later her telephone rang aloud from her purse still abandoned near the entrance.</p><p>“I beg your pardon, Mr. Stane” she said, jumping up and taking her phone. She noticed the gun, so she kept the purse opened on his left arm. “I don’t have to lose it at any cost!” she promised herself, picking up the call from an unknown number.</p><p>The moment she said “Hello?” a loud female voice exploded in her ear: “Potts, where the hell are you? Why aren’t you at your apartment? We left you unchecked for 2 hours to take care of an unleashed dog and you run away! Tell me you’re not at Stark’s house! Tell me HE is not here with you!”</p><p>She noticed with the corner of her eyes that Obadiah was standing, maybe guessing that there was something going on. He was reaching at his phone, so Pepper exclaimed out loud: “Yes, yes, Mr. Stark and Mr. Stane are here too, no need to worry! I will refer your message, if you need to…”</p><p>It worked: he paused and looked at her with a questioning expression.</p><p>“For the Russian winter, Potts!” the other girl swore on the phone. “Barton, quick! Start the engine! We need to go by Stark! Call Hill, this is a red code! Potts, keep talking! Distract him until we arrive!”</p><p>“Oh for sure! That sounds like a nice proposal from your part! I’m sure both Mr. Stark and Mr. Stane would love it!” she exclaimed faking a merry spirit. In reality she was thinking on the timing: if the agents were near her house, with the traffic they would take at least 30 minutes to arrive there… an eternity.</p><p>“Who’s on the phone?” Stane was asking, interested at the possibility of making money. Greed has always been his flaw… and maybe now it would be his doom!</p><p>She signed him to wait until she was faking listening at the other side: in reality agent Romanov was screwing in a mix of Russian, English and some other languages she couldn’t identify, while Barton was muttering some codes probably by speaking to SHIELD.</p><p>“So are you saying you’re going to buy all the stocked remaining?” she said aloud. “Well, you must understand those contain dangerous materials, I don’t know if it would be possible…”</p><p>“13 minutes!” she heard Barton saying. She couldn’t imagine how fast he was driving.</p><p>“Which remaining?” Stane asked, by moving closer to Pepper. He was seriously interested, so she thought to play along and said: “The remaining of a previous shipment we still have on Manhattan docks!”.</p><p>He seemed satisfied and started to consider the possible income.</p><p>“Good job, Potts!” the woman on the other side of the phone said. “We’re coming!”</p><p>“Thank you, miss Romanov! It’s a pleasure to make deals with you!”</p><p>The moment she said it aloud she realized she had made a mistake.</p><p>Stane’s shoulders were rigid, while he turn to her with dread eyes and asked: “Natasha Romanov???”</p><p>“Bozhe moi!” she heard her muttering on the phone. “Barton, quicker!!! Potts, don’t lose your nerves!”</p><p>But Pepper was staring at Stane like the proverbial deer in front of the truck on the route. He was looming over her, eyes red in menace, probably starting to connect the dots.</p><p>“WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO WITH THE BLACK WIDOW?” he asked, trembling with… fear?</p><p>“I- I don’t know what are you referring to…” she stuttered. “I- I was talking with Miss Romanov of a- a- food enterprise to… buy robotic equipment…”</p><p>She was sure it wasn’t a good excuse: they didn’t have robotic equipment on Manhattan docks and she was just contradicting herself.</p><p>He saw his eyes narrowing not anymore in fear but in anger: and an angry Obadiah Stane could be a very dangerous one.</p><p>“10 minutes, Potts!” she heard Barton’s voice in the phone, before Stane took it and simply crashed it in his bare hand. He was furious. He took his gun.</p><p>“Now, miss Potts” he grinned at her, grabbing her wrist, “we’ll have a good talk on what’s going on… and you’ll behave like a good girl, won’t you?”</p><p>“Let her go now!” she heard Happy’s voice. She turns a bit to see that he was aiming at Stane with his gun.</p><p>And Stane just laughed, while with a twist put Pepper’s back against his chest, twisting her wrist painfully behind her. He pointed the gun to her head. She saw Happy hesitating, unsecure of the aiming.</p><p>“Why don’t you put that expensive toy down and stay quiet like a good dog, before Miss Potts here gets hurt?” he said, slowly trying to make his way to the door.</p><p>Happy was still unsure on what to do, but then Stane shot him right in his right leg without a warning.</p><p>The man collapsed on the floor, holding his leg and dropping the gun down. He was bleeding a lot: Stane had hit an artery for sure! If he didn’t do something soon, he would be death in five, maybe ten minutes.</p><p>“HAPPY!” Pepper shouted trying to free herself, but Stane hold her strong. She felt her shoulder disarticulated with a great pain.</p><p>“STAY STILL, STUPID BITCH!” he shouted to her.</p><p>Pepper was being dragged to the main door, when they saw Tony emerging from his bedroom: he was panting hard, and he needed to grab at the door to stand.</p><p>“Let. Her. Go.” he menaced, before collapsing on the ground next to Happy.</p><p>Stane laughed: “You’re not man enough to defend your friends, Tony boy! I told you back then: you’re but a whore! Now stay where you belong or I’ll open a hole in your secretary’s beautiful head!”</p><p>She fell tears running on her chin, while she watched Tony crawling towards her… no, he wasn’t moving towards her, he was aiming at Happy’s gun. She needed to distract Stane from noticing.</p><p>“You’re not going anywhere, Stane!” she said. “There are records! They know who you are!”</p><p>“And what so, darling?” he grinned at her, but it worked: he was running his beard on her neck like a predator and she felt nauseated by his breath smelling of tobacco. “I have tons of friends to help me… while you have no one! Am I right, Tony boy?”</p><p>He turned against him just in time to see him standing on his knees, trembling but holding the gun.</p><p>“Let her go” he said, turning the gun against himself. “Or I kill myself!”</p><p>That stopped Stane, who looked at him: that was a trap, but he didn’t get what Tony was trying to do. Nobody did actually.</p><p>“What kind of menace is this, boy?” he asked indeed. “Why shouldn’t I be great if you die?”</p><p>“Because of the Jericho!” Tony smirked.</p><p>Pepper felt Stane was frowning, his grip tightening on her wrist and making her moan in pain.</p><p>“What about the Jericho?” the old man spit.</p><p>“Because” Tony smiled at him sarcastic, “I know you’ve already sent half of them to your friends in Afghanistan. I’ve completed their aiming code yesterday as you asked. But I have put a small surprise inside them! There’s a virus in each one of them so when they’ll arm the missiles, they will blow up directly under their noses… tell me, Obadiah: how many explosions would occur before they think you’d try to mock them like you did years ago? How much would they pay for your head when they think you’ve betrayed them?”</p><p>“You little brat!” he shouted, furious and in panic.</p><p>“Don’t need to act so emotional, Obie! Let Peps go, and I’ll deactivate those codes. I’ll even give myself to you: don’t you think is a nice exchange? Your life and your <em>golden boy</em> for… what? A childish revenge? I thought you were a man of rationality!”</p><p>They stalled for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, but to Pepper it seemed an eternity. Then she felt Obadiah pushing her forward.</p><p>“Go on!” he said. “Kill yourself! And after you’re death I’m going to play with your red-haired friend here. Oh, I will enjoy myself for long with her before killing her! What’s up, Tony boy? You’re not ready for this? You must know that in a game of chess you must be ready to sacrifice your pawns… even if it’s the Queen!”</p><p>He has come incredibly closed, and Tony was just stunned there, incapable to move or to do anything. She knew he has called his bluff… and Tony knew as well.</p><p>“Drop the gun now, boy, I’ll swear I’ll kill your bitch and your fat human pet!” Stane told him coldly.</p><p>And Tony looked up at her and she saw every emotions passing in his eyes: love, fear, hope, despair, promises of a future they would never have.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Peps…” he whispered.</p><p>Then he smirked and he pulled the trigger.</p><p>It all happened so fast that Pepper had difficulties remembering how exact things have gone.</p><p>She has seen Happy kicking his Boss with probably his last energies: he saved his life, though, because the shot passed right over his head, by cutting a line that started to bleed. The gun fell down next to them.</p><p>The Obadiah shouted: “YOU DAMN BRAT!”</p><p>And he launched Pepper on the ground, directly over Happy who has fainted in his own blood. Stane threw himself over Tony: he really couldn’t let him die!</p><p>“I gave you everything!” Stane was shouting, beating him hard with the back on his gun. “And this is how your repay me! You naughty ungrateful whore!”</p><p>“Stay away from my boy, you monster!” a man voice shouted from all the walls.</p><p>That took both Tony aback, but Stane literally froze.</p><p>“Howard?!” the man asked, astonished. “You’re death…”</p><p>He hesitated, and that hesitation decided everything.</p><p>Because in the span of seconds, Pepper launched herself over Happy’s gun still on the floor, while Tony charged Stane to take his own gun away.</p><p>But Stane was taller, tougher and stronger than Tony even in normal times: now it was simply no chance for him, if he has been taken by surprise. He kicked him with his knee, but Tony didn’t lose his grasp over the gun. Stane fell over Tony on the floor, both of them frantically screaming and trying to take control over the gun.</p><p>And Pepper couldn’t waste more time: she aimed at Stane’s back and pulled the trigger.</p><p>“Go to hell!” she later remembered to have shouted.</p><p>Only that she heard two gun shots echoing at almost the same time.</p><p>A huge blood stain opened on Obadiah’s back while he collapsed over Tony on the floor. Other blood flooded from under the two men on the floor. And neither of them was moving.</p><p>“TONY!!!” Pepper shouted.</p><p>In that moment, agent Barton and agent Romanov entered the house.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well, at least they've won... but at what costs?<br/>Please, don't hate me!!! I guarantee the happy ending (because life is tragic enough...), but to discover how he went, you need to read the next parts of the series (I've already written everything down! See the introduction of the series).<br/>Now, as tradition dictates, when a major character's life is at stake it's time for... flashback!</p><p>Next story: "The golden boy/ part 1", from Tony's own perspective.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope you've liked!<br/>Personally, I've loved to write this part of the series from Pepper's eyes.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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